Carlos Torres Vila: “Artificial intelligence gives Europe and Spain a historic opportunity to boost competitiveness”

Carlos Torres Vila began his remarks in Santander with an overview of the Spanish and European economies. The BBVA Chair highlighted that Spain has demonstrated a remarkable capacity for growth in recent years, outperforming the European average and generating significant employment. However, the main structural challenge remains increasing productivity: “We need to ensure that every worker, every company and every euro invested generates more value.” In this regard, he noted that productivity is key to both prosperity and the sustainability of the European social model. “This is not only a Spanish challenge. It is also Europe’s great challenge,” he stated.

Based on this assessment, he stressed the need to enhance Europe’s competitiveness in an increasingly demanding international environment. To achieve this, he called for greater investment and innovation, faster technology adoption and deeper integration of the single market to strengthen the European economy’s growth potential.

In his view, Europe’s challenge goes beyond economic growth. Europe needs to increase its capacity to finance major transformations such as the energy transition, digitalization, security and defense, while preserving its social model and strengthening its strategic autonomy for future generations. In this context, he believes that “if the major economic challenge is to increase productivity, artificial intelligence can become one of the most powerful tools to achieve it.”

Carlos Torres Vila compared AI to other major technological revolutions that marked turning points in history. However, beyond the speed at which it is evolving, he emphasized its ability to amplify people’s cognitive capabilities and improve decision-making. “AI can help us work better. That is where its enormous economic potential lies.”

Addressing the concerns that this technology may raise, he called for “responsibility” and stated that “it will be necessary to ensure that the benefits of this technology are widely shared and help expand opportunities for people.”

The economic opportunity of AI lies in its adoption

Carlos Torres Vila argued that AI represents an extraordinary opportunity for Europe. However, the creation of economic value will depend on the ability to integrate these technologies deeply into the business ecosystem. “The economic opportunity of artificial intelligence lies in its adoption,” leveraging one of its distinguishing features: its ability to accelerate learning and innovation.

Europe cannot, therefore, afford to fall behind in this new technological era. Carlos Torres Vila recalled that the gap that has emerged over recent decades between Europe and other regions of the world is not due to technological differences, but rather to factors such as investment, business scale, innovation capacity and the speed of adoption. For this reason, he argued that Europe’s greatest opportunity is not only to participate in the development of AI, but to become a leader in its adoption.

The BBVA Chair highlighted that Europe and Spain start from a favorable position, but seizing this opportunity will require investment, a long-term vision and the ability to transform. “AI is an organizational, business and human transformation,” he said. Consequently, the organizations that make the most of this new era will be those capable of integrating AI into the way they work, their decision-making processes and their relationships with customers and suppliers. The impact of AI can also help address challenges such as the energy transition and access to housing. “It will not solve these challenges on its own, but it will be a very powerful tool to tackle them,” he said.

BBVA accelerates its AI transformation

Banking will also be profoundly transformed. The BBVA Chair explained that AI will make it possible to better understand each customer’s context, anticipate needs and provide more personalized advice: “We are moving toward a more proactive, more contextual and more integrated form of banking in the daily lives of people and businesses.”

Carlos Torres Vila explained that BBVA views AI not as just another technological evolution, but as a transformation comparable to — and even deeper than — the one experienced through digitalization over the last decade. “The main lesson we learned during the digital revolution is that the most enduring competitive advantages do not come from adopting a specific technology, but from transforming the entire organization to take full advantage of it,” he said. In this regard, he stressed that “real transformation does not happen when a tool is implemented. It happens when processes, the organization and ways of working change.”

“We believe that AI will ultimately transform not only the way we work, but also the very nature of many of the tasks we perform,” he emphasized. For this reason, BBVA has made AI one of its top strategic priorities and has created a new AI Transformation area at the highest level of the organization.

BBVA’s roadmap is structured around eight strategic areas of the bank — ‘The Eight’ — which cover the entire value chain and are already transforming the way the organization operates. However, what is truly relevant for the BBVA Chair is the ability to integrate intelligent agents into virtually every process. “That is why we are investing decisively in a common infrastructure — The Frame — which is the foundation for industrializing the creation, deployment, management and governance of artificial intelligence agents at scale,” he announced.

“Those who are able to bring that transformation to scale will be the ones who truly capture the value of this new technology,” he explained. To achieve this, BBVA is acting with ambition and speed: “We are building the infrastructure that will support the gradual incorporation of intelligent agents into all of the bank’s processes and activities. That is the commitment we are making at BBVA.”