Artificial Intelligence

BBVA has taken a firm step toward the future by expanding its Data University program, which now features new courses on generative artificial intelligence (generative AI). As part of the agreement signed with OpenAI, the bank is calling on its employees, from data scientists to any other member of the team, to apply the latest advances in AI, machine learning and advanced analytics in developing innovative financial products. BBVA’s Data University has already impacted more than 50,000 employees in 6 years, of whom nearly 5,000 have completed specialized courses. BBVA is also looking to strengthen its educational ecosystem through partnerships with prestigious institutions such as the University of Navarra, Telefónica and Coursera.

BBVA has chosen Telefónica Tech to boost the cybersecurity of its operations on a global scale with the incorporation of the most advanced technologies in artificial intelligence and process automation for the prevention of cyber threats. In addition, this alliance involves the creation of a new specialised centre in Mexico, which will function as a mirror of BBVA's existing Global Cybersecurity Centre in Spain. The combination of the two will provide comprehensive and uninterrupted coverage for the entire Group.

Online courses promoted by universities, business school training and even materials offered by technology giants are some of the ways to learn to master artificial intelligence. Beyond programming, AI professionals can receive training in other areas, such as computational linguistics and ethics. Thanks to this trend, Europe currently has over 120,000 professionals who are highly qualified to work in AI.

BBVA AI Factory, BBVA's artificial intelligence hub, has been honored for the third time by Global Finance magazine as one of the leading innovation labs in the financial world. BBVA is the only Spanish bank featured in this ranking, which highlights "excellence" in creating solutions that address current challenges in the financial sector.

BBVA conducted a study in Spain and Mexico that shows that customers who use its main financial health tools save 11 percent and 20 percent more, respectively. But how did the bank ensure that they eliminated the influence of other variables when calculating this savings? To do so, the bank used two machine learning models and causal inference, a statistical methodology that detects complex cause-effect relationships.

The emergence of tools like ChatGPT has transformed conversational interactions between humans and machines. Generative AI's ability to provide accurate and contextually relevant responses makes it particularly valuable for automated customer service environments, such as chatbots and virtual avatars.

After years at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI)-based research and projects, BBVA has taken another big step forward in the use of generative AI in its main markets. Not only has it prioritized around 100 projects to be developed with various tools that employ this new technology, it has also signed a strategic agreement with OpenAI —the creator of ChatGPT— to start deploying this cutting-edge tool among its employees. The aim is to explore, in a safe and responsible way, how generative AI can expedite processes, improve productivity and foster innovation thanks to its abilities to create text and images and process information, among other features.

The international publication has granted two ‘Innovators Awards’ to BBVA for its crypto asset service in Switzerland and for an automated process the bank has developed to guide the creation and application of machine learning models for the early detection and management of debt.

BBVA is looking to spot and train the best in-house talent in the use of the large language models (LLMs) that are behind the success of the likes of ChatGPT, as it drives the exploration of projects based on generative artificial intelligence. To succeed in this task, it recently organized a DataRally, a competition in which some 440 employees tested their ability in interacting with one of these models. Impressed by the positive feedback received from participants, the bank may now apply the DataRally concept to the generative AI courses it will be running as part of its Data University in-house training program.

Chatbots have been automating everyday customer service tasks for years: they lighten the workload for employees and help businesses save time and money. The emergence of ChatGPT, however, has widened the scope of the technology, and its potential for streamlining and maximizing business processes, beyond anything we’ve seen before. The new chatbots can even write e-mails and debug computer code. ChatGPT’s instant popularity has prompted well-known app factories to launch a flood of similar artificial intelligence tools, but the benefits it offers for a specific range of communication and analysis tasks also come with limitations in a business setting.

The bank offers its data scientists and engineers an extensive and continuous training ecosystem, both in-house and in partnershipwith top international universities and educational institutions,so that they may apply the latest advances in artificialintelligence, machine learning and advanced analytics in thedevelopment of cutting-edge financial products. In addition, italso offers training to other professional profiles so that they canuse data analytics to solve business challenges in their areas.In just 5 years, the BBVA Campus has trained more than50,000 employees, including 900 data scientists, through theData University.

The publication specialized in financial markets and investment banking has included BBVA AI Factory for the second time in its list of the best financial innovation labs in the world. The Innovators 2023 Awards also recognized the car comparison tool in Spain and the collection link for companies in Colombia as two of the outstanding innovations in the sector in the last year.

Fast Company has included BBVA AI Factory in its annual list of ‘Best Workplaces for Innovators.’ BBVA’s artificial intelligence (AI) center was ranked 40th in the world and first in the category of companies with fewer than 100 employees for fostering knowledge-sharing among employees and supporting female talent.

The emerging company will work on a technological solution to boost the development of synthetic data. They will replace real data while testing artificial intelligence models, thus protecting user privacy. Their proposal was selected by BBVA AI Factory in the framework of the University of Navarra’s SofIA startup accelerator program.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Information and Communication Technologies has gone in this fourteenth edition to Judea Pearl for “bringing a modern foundation to artificial intelligence”. The Professor of Computer Science at the University of California (UCLA), has made contributions that enable AI programs to use two of the key resources we humans use to interpret the world and arrive at decisions: probability and causality.

BBVA has managed to get its app to learn to read customers’ bills, distinguish their energy costs and calculate their equivalent in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in order to offer personalized advice to save energy. Behind the carbon footprint calculator, which has been operational in Spain and will reach Turkey shortly, is an artificial intelligence system that is still being developed. In 2022, it will add transportation measurements to give an even more accurate picture of each user’s environmental impact.

The BBVA Group, which already invests in artificial intelligence technologies and contributes to its general ecosystem in Turkey, is now joining the educational and awareness campaign “10million.AI,” a global social responsibility project by the Swiss company Global AI Hub.

Innovation, teamwork, knowledge acquisition and use of new technological capabilities are essential to developing new products and services that are more in line with customer needs. The BBVA Global Ninja Hackathon accordingly set the challenge of creating a prototype to attract and/or retain customers using artificial intelligence and data, in partnership with IBM. Did anyone manage it?

Global Finance has included the BBVA Artificial Intelligence Factory in its ‘World’s Best Financial Innovation Labs’ list for 2021. BBVA AI Factory SL is recognized as a benchmark in the application of artificial intelligence and data analytics in the creation and improvement of banking services worldwide.

We tested OpenAI’s GPT-3 (one of the largest Artificial Intelligence (AI) language models ever created) on ten Spanish customer conversations about banking. Without any previous customization, re-training or transfer learning whatsoever, we asked it to generate summaries that would be useful to any bank agent who joins (or retakes) the conversation.

Yesil Science was created with the objective of developing innovative solutions to healthcare, combining medicine, art, and technology. In addition, it is a company that has participated in the Garanti BBVA Partners program.

Sponsored by Garanti BBVA, the Turkish technology company Kodluyoruz has developed Alchemist, a series of 15 podcasts on technology and artificial intelligence.

Blue is a virtual assistant that uses various artificial intelligence tools to help BBVA customers use the mobile application to complete tasks as well get detailed, personalized information about their accounts. This is how it works.

Blue is pleasant, patient, and able to put itself in the shoes of others. It loves talking to humans and is always willing and ready to help customers. And it wants to learn lots of things in order to become even more insightful. These are just some of the personality traits that characterize BBVA's new voice assistant, which came to life out of a complex process that factored even the most minor details.

In 2016, U.S. consulting firm Gartner predicted that by 2020 the average citizen would have more conversations with bots than with his or her spouse or partner. They were not far off. Virtual assistants are increasingly present and integrated in our daily lives. If a few years ago it was strange for us to talk to robots, it is now commonplace to ask Siri what the most popular pop song is, to get help from Alexa on making a cheesecake, or asking Cortana the fastest way to get from point A to point B. Virtual voice assistants are increasingly more human, but with something in common: their sex.