Spanish banking group, BBVA, has unveiled a new centre to investigate ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) can power both its customer solutions and the Group’s internal processes.
Located at BBVA’s premises on the northern fringes of Madrid, 150 professionals make up the initial team for what the group describes as one of the “boldest bets by any financial institution across the globe.”
The new establishment – dubbed ‘AI Factory’ – will feature a cross-disciplinary team consisting of data scientists, teams from the Engineering area along with representatives from other business areas.
“The smart and responsible use of data is one of the key levers of BBVA’s transformation; one on which we have been working for years,” explained Ricardo Martín Manjón, global head of data, BBVA.
“In this line, the purpose of the AI Factory is to contribute to driving this transformation, focusing on those areas where AI can have a more differential and larger-scale impact.”
BBVA said the new establishment will look to shorten its new solutions’ time-to-market and continue to focus on a consistent user experience for its customers.
The group described work taking place at the factory as following an ‘agile’ methodology – able to be adopted and scalable for all consumers.
“The AI Factory will allow us to have the best tech and data teams working in an integrated manner, with the aim of developing algorithms that can be embedded into the bank processes to enrich our channels, products and services through personalisation, contextualisation and recommendation. And also to streamline and increase the efficiency of our internal processes,” said Ricardo Forcano, global head of engineering, BBVA.
The banking group recently unveiled a new company logo.
