CaixaBank starts its second roll out of generative AI across the entire group

• The bank is launching the GalaxIA project with a cross-cutting team of more than 100 people specialising in AI and cloud projects working in all its units and some of its subsidiaries
• GalaxIA is a continuation of GenIAl, which has been a great success, exceeding expectations. In the space of six months it has implemented selected use cases and deployed them to end users, has strengthened internal capabilities and knowledge of generative AI and has identified the real costs associated with this type of AI solutions
• The first five generative AI use cases that have been developed and will be scaled are the employee assistant, Wall conversations with customers, code generation, the Contact Centre assistant and Customer Service complaint management

CaixaBank has launched a second phase in the development and deployment of generative artificial intelligence to scale use cases and implement them throughout the group. The aim of this project is to improve the customer and employee experience and increase productivity and efficiency, as the bank's professionals will be able to devote more time to projects with greater added value.

The GalaxIA Project, as this new phase is called, is a continuation of GenIAl, which the CaixaBank Group has been conducting for a year to analyse the potential of this new technology and develop use cases in which AI could contribute to driving digital innovation and improving processes in all of the bank's business lines. At the same time, the project has highlighted the importance of the centralised governance of new initiatives, given continuous developments in technology and the widespread impact it is expected to have on business processes in the coming years.

The implementation of GenIAl has been a success, exceeding the expectations set, as it has allowed for the implementation in production and deployment to end users of the cases selected for analysis within the deadlines set, strengthened capacities and internal knowledge of generative AI, identified the costs associated with this type of solution, deployed an initial technological infrastructure to develop proposals and put them into production, measured the real value and economic return for this technology in each use case, and defined a framework that will allow for further progress in the project and the scaling of these use cases.

Use cases and new projects

The first five generative AI use cases that have been developed and will be scaled are related to the cognitive assistant for group employees, which, with the application of this technology, has been shown to improve searches and gives much more direct responses in a more colloquial manner, saving reading time and improving efficiency; with the Wall conversations between employees and customers, which has improved the quality of and increased the number of messages responded to daily by managers; with the generation of code, where programming, documentation and testing times have been streamlined, making the life cycle of projects more efficient as well as improving the experience of developers; with the Contact Centre assistant, which provides the agent with more and better information about the customer, now context-aware at all times, and also helping with more specific tasks, for example, blocking cards; and with Customer Service Management (CSM) claims, identifying and classifying cases and assisting specialised teams in the operational management of these cases.

In addition, as part of this second phase in the development and deployment of generative AI at CaixaBank, new use cases will be analysed and developed. We will work both on projects with immediate returns that improve quality and processing times for customers, and on medium and long-term strategic visions that substantially change the way of working in certain areas and complex business processes, such as the customer mortgage process.

Potential of generative AI

With GalaxIA, a new phase is now beginning, with a broader vision of the potential of generative AI, including, in addition to other possible use cases, new environments to experiment with different partners, with the aim of continuing to experiment and learn with this new technology while complementing the capabilities developed during the GenIAl phase.

GalaxIA will therefore act as an accelerator for CaixaBank Group's generative AI projects and will be an active radar to detect new developments in an ever-changing ecosystem that requires rapid adaptation processes. The project already has a team of more than 100 experts in AI, security, cloud, business, user experience, in addition to developers, data scientists and architects from various departments and specialities at CaixaBank and CaixaBank Tech, the CaixaBank Group's technology subsidiary. The Portuguese bank BPI, which belongs to the group, VidaCaixa and CaixaBank Payments and Consumer are participating in the programme.

In addition, a new solid, secure and reliable technological platform has been designed that will enable these use cases to be put into real production and scale the use of generative AI throughout the organisation.

CaixaBank's vision on generative AI is that it has a high potential in the short term to support management and routine tasks in such a way that it can provide employees with more information and time to focus on higher added-value tasks and thus offer customers a better service. In addition, these solutions will benefit customers by improving user experience and how they engage with the bank through different channels.

CaixaBank believes that in the coming years the developments in generative AI will be widely adopted by society and will therefore entail substantial changes in the way in which the bank relates to its customers and in the way the group's internal activities and tasks will be transformed.

The ethics of artificial intelligence is a priority issue for CaixaBank, which it addresses with a multidisciplinary approach to ensure that AI applications are fair, transparent and responsible. The bank is exploring the use of explainable AI to improve the efficiency of fraud detection systems and avoid unwanted bias and discrimination.