Lloyds to use AI in every customer interaction by 2030

Lloyds Banking Group expects artificial intelligence to support every customer interaction by 2030 as it set out its Accelerate 2030 plan, a four-year programme of efficiency and growth.

The announcement followed first-half 2026 pre-tax profit of £4.2bn, up 23% from a year earlier. The bank plans to generate more than £100m of value from generative and agentic AI in 2026 and to cut a further £2bn in costs over the next four years. Those savings are incremental to roughly £2bn of cost reductions delivered across the previous four years.

Charlie Nunn, chief executive, said: “Every part of the group has a clear AI-enabled strategy that will further enhance our ability to differentiate our services, grow and deliver improved productivity. By 2030 we expect AI-powered tools will support every customer interaction and all of our colleagues.” He added the bank is on course to deliver the £100m benefit from generative and agentic AI in 2026.

Lloyds is deploying AI beyond basic customer service. An AI investment-advice tool inside the Scottish Widows app is being extended to the group’s retail banking app to provide targeted advice and to help sign up one million smaller investors.

The bank says half of its current AI spending focuses on productivity, efficiency and risk management, with the remainder aimed at growing revenue.

To prepare staff, Lloyds launched an AI Academy and aims for all 67,000 employees to be AI literate by the end of the year. The bank reports staff have completed about 400,000 AI training courses since January. The next phase combines reskilling existing employees with targeted external hires to build in-house expertise.

Lloyds plans about 300 new agentic AI roles to be filled from inside and outside the group. Job types include data and AI scientists, engineers, responsible AI specialists and AI product managers.

Industry benchmarking shows rapid growth in AI-related roles across banks. A report from Evident found one in 50 hires at the top 10 banks now work in AI-related roles. Lloyds’ Financial Institutions Sentiment Survey for 2025 reported 59% of firms saw AI-driven productivity gains in the past 12 months, up from 32% in 2024.

The bank says the expected efficiencies from Accelerate 2030 will support further investment in customer-facing services and technology.