Antonio Bravo: “AI Is Driving a Structural Transformation within the Banking Business”
At BBVA, the adoption of artificial intelligence is much more than just a technological change: it represents a profound transformation of the banking business. The bank’s AI strategy is built on leadership and employee empowerment as a way to drive uptake and achieve a truly transformative impact. OpenAI invited Antonio Bravo, Global Head of Data, to take part in its annual event OpenAI Frontiers, where he explained how both entities are already transforming the banking sector, with tangible results.
Antonio Bravo spoke with Ashley Kramer, OpenAI’s Chief Revenue Officer, about how AI is impacting the entire value chain of the banking business—from a new, hyper-personalized proposal focused on customer needs to intelligent automation and the redesign of processes to drive value creation and also improve customer experience. According to him, “the cross-cutting nature of AI requires everyone’s commitment; its success goes far beyond technology and data teams. At BBVA, the strategy spans all areas, combining a common agenda with granular and specific initiatives to scale up the transformation.”
Leadership is a key factor in this transformation and so the engagement of senior management has become one of the main factors driving the adoption of technology within the bank. The management team views technology as the backbone of the ongoing structural transformation of BBVA’s ways of working and organizational culture.
Cross-functional adoption in the day-to-day life of the organization is the second determining factor. Notably, BBVA has created a global unit to drive uptake across all areas and countries. It has also introduced the role of ‘wizards’—300 AI specialists who, from within the business areas themselves, work to scale up the implementation of this technology by promoting the development of real use cases. “The goal is to help employees become AI ‘super users,’ transforming the way they work and increasing their impact,” Bravo explained.
The results are already visible and look promising. The use of OpenAI tools is becoming widespread among employees who, with more than 4,000 active GPTs and an average use of 4.1 days per week, claim that it saves them nearly three hours a week. This impact translates into time-savings of up to 80% for certain specific tasks, such as report writing or risk analysis.
As a final reflection, BBVA’s Global Head of Data recommended that companies embarking on this transformation to prioritize learning, stay humble, and “avoid clinging to your current beliefs, because they may change tomorrow with what technology might bring.”