CaixaBank creates a new multi-disciplinary team to develop generative Artificial Intelligence

• The GenIAl project aims to contribute to driving digital innovation by employing Artificial Intelligence in all of the bank's lines of activity.
• CaixaBank is a pioneer in the use of the Artificial Intelligence applied to financial services, with experience since 2014 and a strategic collaboration agreement with Microsoft that will provide it access to models and advancements that are not yet available on the market.

CaixaBank has put together a multi-disciplinary task force of more than 100 people to exclusively analyse and deploy generative Artificial Intelligence in specific areas of internal and customer-related processes. The objective is to analyse the potential of this new technology and develop use cases in which AI contributes to driving digital innovation and improving processes in all of the bank's lines of activity, with the aim of improving its customers' satisfaction and its employees' user experience. It also intends to streamline new software developments and improve processes for analysing management information.

CaixaBank's vision in analysing generative AI is that it has a high potential to support management and routine tasks in such a way that, with the appropriate applications, it can provide employees with more time to focus on higher added-value tasks and thus offer customers' a better service.

The team exclusively engaged in this initiative has offices in Barcelona and Madrid. This multi-disciplinary team has been specifically selected for this programme and includes members from various departments and specialities in CaixaBank and CaixaBank Tech —CaixaBank Group's technological subsidiary—, with the aim of promoting the multi-dimensionality and global vision of the developments. The bank BPI, which is part of the Group, is participating actively in the corporate programme with employees joining the project.

Microsoft, with which CaixaBank has a strategic collaboration agreement for co-innovation in Artificial Intelligence, and Accenture are distinguished partners in the GenIAl project. The cooperation with Microsoft provides CaixaBank with access to GPT models and others in a secure test environment and with advancements that are not yet available on the market.

Multi-disciplinary working groups to analyse use cases

A series of working groups have been created within the framework of GenIAl to develop real use cases in which generative AI would bring improvements, with a focus on employee experience. CaixaBank is confident about the positive results of the use cases and expects to deploy it in the entire Group throughout 2024.

Among the initiatives under way stand out those related to streamlining customer service through the digital channels and those linked to risk analysis, with the aim of providing support to the company's professionals. Others include generating code in developments, preparing tests and drafting documentation for new technological functionalities.

A pioneer in the use of AI applied to financial services

With experience since 2014, CaixaBank has stood out for being one of the pioneering banks in analysing the use of Artificial Intelligence applied to financial services. Artificial Intelligence has already been applied to multiple services and projects of CaixaBank, from Foreign Trade services to its cognitive assistant, which provides support to both the bank's customers and employees. For example, the call centre incorporates AI-based technology to help assist customers, and it is able to identify customers older than 65 so the call is always taken by a trainedadviser.

In terms of internal management, AI is employed to increase efficiency, even in the in-person branch channel. For example, as of 2019, CaixaBank's advisers are using an Artificial Intelligence application to manage returned direct debit payments. The system automatically analyses the returns, understands individual issues and decides whether to permit the payment, to return the bill to the issuer, or to postpone the payment for a few days before analysing it again to see if the account can be debited. The system can also choose to send the bill to an adviser for a more detailed analysis. CaixaBank obtained a model with 99% accuracy, meaning that the system virtually always thinks and acts like a human.