1 in 5 NatWest queries now answered by AI
Key Points
- NatWest Cora handles 20% of customer chat queries via generative AI as of Q1 2026
- Cora chat volumes up 11% year-on-year, equating to millions of AI-handled interactions per quarter
- NatWest serves over 19 million UK Retail Banking customers, making this one of the largest disclosed gen-AI deployments in UK consumer banking
- Bank also runs four AI-enabled agents in Commercial & Institutional onboarding and mandates
- Disclosure published in NatWest Group Q1 2026 Interim Management Statement, 1 May 2026
NatWest’s digital assistant Cora handled 20% of customer chat queries through AI in Q1 2026, the bank has announced.
The figure, contained in the group’s latest interim statement, marks one of the first concrete numbers any major UK high street bank has put on generative AI use in front-line customer service.
NatWest serves over 19 million retail banking customers, meaning the share of chat volume routed through generative AI runs into millions of interactions per quarter.
The bank reported chat volumes up 11% year-on-year and said it is using “AI at scale across the bank” to drive productivity and lower customer service costs.
Cora operates as NatWest’s primary digital assistant inside the mobile app and online banking platforms, fielding routine queries on balances, card management, transaction disputes and product information.
The 20% figure means one in five customer chats now goes to a generative AI system rather than a scripted decision-tree response or a human adviser.
NatWest did not break out which query types the generative AI handles, what proportion resolve without escalation, or how the bank measures answer accuracy.
The bank’s wider AI deployment extends beyond Cora. NatWest disclosed that four AI-enabled agents are now live across customer onboarding and mandates within its Commercial & Institutional division, and that AI-assisted onboarding contributed to a 25% year-on-year rise in start-up customer registrations, with 24,000 new start-ups signed up in Q1 2026.
The bank made AI deployment a core lever in the strategic plan it set out in February 2026.
Automated systems handle a growing share of interactions that customers may believe are with the bank. AI systems can produce plausible but incorrect answers, a failure mode the AI industry calls hallucination.
NatWest has published no data on Cora’s accuracy, error correction process, or the route customers should take if they believe an AI-generated response was wrong.
Chief Executive Paul Thwaite reported a Q1 2026 cost to income ratio of 46.5%, down 2.1 percentage points year-on-year, with the bank citing AI deployment among the factors driving operating costs lower.
Operating profit for the quarter rose to £2 billion, up from £1.8 billion in Q1 2025.
