Here’s how often UK bank customers actually reach a human now
Key Points
- NatWest's chatbot handled 7.1 million customer conversations in six months
- 3.8 million of those ended without any human involvement, up 23% year on year
- The bank launched its first customer-facing generative AI tool during the half
- Staff numbers outside its recent acquisition fell by around 400
- Costs as a share of income dropped to 46.0% from 48.8%
NatWest’s digital assistant Cora handled 7.1 million customer conversations in the first half of 2026, and 3.8 million of them finished without any involvement from a member of staff.
The fully automated figure rose 23% on the same period last year, meaning slightly more than half of all conversations with the assistant now end there.
The remaining 3.3 million went on to a person or another channel. NatWest serves more than 19 million retail customers in the UK, and it presents the shift as part of a wider push to make its operations cheaper to run.
The bank also launched its first customer-facing generative AI tool during the half, on Bankline, the platform its business customers use.
Five AI agents now run inside its commercial banking operation supporting staff through core processes, covering account opening, day-to-day operations and customer servicing.
In its private banking arm, staff use of AI tools tripled over the six months, including a tool that turns adviser phone calls into written notes.
Reduced headcount
The shift towards more AI automation can be seen across the bank’s total headcount.
NatWest employed 60,500 people at the end of June, around 1,800 more than in December, but roughly 2,200 of those arrived with its acquisition of Evelyn Partners.
Stripping that figure out, the rest of the bank shed around 400 roles, which NatWest attributes to its ongoing ‘transformation programme’.
NatWest is not the only UK banking group making a big AI push.
Lloyds Banking Group expects generative AI to deliver more than £100 million of benefit in 2026 and has started deploying agentic AI systems in fraud response and money management.
The group set out the detail in its half-year results for the six months to 30 June 2026, alongside a new five-year strategy it calls Accelerate 2030.
Lloyds has expanded the use of AI across its fraud response systems and created a new agentic AI system that supports colleagues during customer journeys in real time, which the group says enables faster decision-making.
It has also enhanced digital self-service journeys in fraud prevention.
Lloyds has started rolling out Explore Your Spending, which it describes as the first large scale conversational money management experience in UK banking.
The tool delivers spending insights through agentic AI inside the bank’s apps, which around 22 million customers now use. The group records around 7 billion digital logons a year across the franchise.
In its insurance and investments arm, Lloyds launched InvestAI within the Scottish Widows app to provide investment guidance, and plans a wider service called Invest AI to deliver simple advice at scale.
The group cites the 90% of UK adults it says cannot access financial advice as the target for that proposition. The core Scottish Widows app now serves over 1 million users after 79% year-on-year growth.
