A 'data & AI-first' bank that has put a number on AI (more than EUR 1bn of business value a year by 2028, EUR 84m booked in the first half of 2026), gives all 185,000 employees AI access through a multi-provider stack of Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, and is pushing early into agentic payments.
How is Banco Santander using AI?
Santander's AI strategy is to be a 'data & AI-first' bank, measured in money: at its investor day on 25 February 2026 the group said data and AI initiatives should generate more than EUR 1bn of business value a year by 2028 from cost savings plus revenue, which executive chair Ana Botín split as roughly EUR 300m of revenue and EUR 700m of cost cuts according to Bloomberg. It booked EUR 35m in the first quarter of 2026, EUR 84m in the first half, and says it is on track to exceed EUR 200m for the year. On 22 June 2026 it extended AI access from about 40,000 to all 185,000 employees, with more than 280 process-automation agents in production and 40% of code written by AI in June. The group, which reported EUR 1,954,465m of total assets at 30 June 2026, spreads generative-AI supply across Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, with an Abu Dhabi partnership with G42. Its US bank is covered at /banks/santander-us.
Lead bank
Banco Santander, S.A.
Total assets (group, as reported, Jun 30, 2026)
EUR 1,954,465m total assets[6]
Charter
Spanish banking group; supervised directly by the ECB (Single Supervisory Mechanism) with the Bank of Spain as national authority, and by local supervisors for subsidiaries (PRA/FCA in the UK, Federal Reserve/OCC in the US, Banco Central do Brasil)
Headquarters
Madrid, Spain
Flagship platform
Group Data & AI function inside ONE Transformation, with a multi-provider model stack
AI leadership
Ana Botín · Héctor Grisi · Ricardo Martín Manjón · Iñaki Bernal · José Manuel de la Chica · Matías Sánchez · Glenn H. Hutchins
- What the strategy is: three pillars named by Chief Data & AI Officer Ricardo Martín Manjón in August 2025 (AI embedded in all businesses, AI at the core of global platforms, and an AI ecosystem as a growth lever with OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon and startups); by June 2026 the priorities are process automation to make the bank faster, safer and more efficient, new sources of growth, and helping people embed AI in daily work.
- A priced target: more than EUR 1bn of business value annually by 2028 (cost savings plus revenue) from data and AI, contributing about one percentage point of the group's cost-to-income improvement (investor day, 25 February 2026); Bloomberg reported about EUR 300m of revenue and about EUR 700m of cost cuts.
- Measured results: EUR 35m of business value in Q1 2026 and EUR 84m in H1 2026 (higher revenue, lower costs and lower loan-loss provisions), with more than EUR 200m expected for 2026; over EUR 200m of AI savings were reported for 2024 on an earlier measure.
- Scale of adoption: AI access for all 185,000 employees from 22 June 2026, 17,000 people using agentic AI in software development in May 2026, 40% of code developed by AI in June, and more than 280 process-automation agents in production across credit, fraud, KYC and operations.
- Multi-provider by design: Microsoft Copilot for productivity; OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini for specialised work; G42 (MoU of 3 June 2026) on AI-enabled banking solutions including an agentic platform; and OpenAI ChatGPT Enterprise rolled out to nearly 15,000 staff in two months in mid-2025.
- Agentic payments: Europe's first live end-to-end payment executed by an AI agent with Mastercard Agent Pay (2 March 2026, in a controlled environment and still at pilot stage), and Getnet infrastructure for merchants to accept AI-agent-initiated payments (9 June 2026).
- Openness: Santander AI Lab published a set of AI projects under an Apache 2.0 licence on GitHub in June 2026, built without real customer data.
- Governance: a board-approved data and AI corporate framework, an AI management and governance policy covering the full lifecycle of use cases, three lines of defence, mandatory AI training from 2026, and model-risk scope expanded to AI systems with the EU AI Act in view.
- Its US bank, Santander Bank, N.A., is covered separately at /banks/santander-us.
What is Group Data & AI function inside ONE Transformation, with a multi-provider model stack?
Santander created a Global Data & AI function in 2025 under a Group Chief Data & AI Officer who reports to the executive chair, and runs AI inside ONE Transformation, its programme of common technology platforms. Microsoft Copilot supports everyday productivity for all 185,000 employees; for specialised capabilities the bank uses OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, Google's Gemini, startups and G42. It says it does not share customer data externally to train third-party models, and its 2025 annual report says it will create its own AI Studio to develop, train and adapt models.[1][5][3]
What has Santander done on AI, and when?
- Jul 22, 2026
- Jun 30, 2026
Research agreement with the CSIC[13]
A three-year agreement between Santander, Santander AI Lab and Spain's Council for Scientific Research on advanced, responsible and explainable AI, with the Chief AI Officer saying it will help roll out more transparent, robust and reliable solutions.
- Jun 25, 2026
Santander AI Lab opens AI projects on GitHub[12]
Open-source tools under Apache 2.0 for AI governance, fraud and other topics, built without real customer data; Head of Santander AI Lab José Manuel de la Chica says the hard problems of advanced AI are too cross-cutting to tackle in silos.
- Jun 22, 2026
- Jun 9, 2026
Getnet infrastructure for AI agent-initiated payments[11]
Getnet, Santander's merchant payments platform, launches infrastructure for merchants to accept payments initiated by AI agents, and with Mastercard and Neivor completes the first real-world case in Mexico and Latin America using Mastercard Agent Pay.
- Jun 3, 2026
Memorandum of understanding with G42[9][20]
A framework to evaluate and develop AI-enabled advisory and savings solutions and a banking intelligence layer across Santander's operations, with G42's Inception (agentic AI) and Presight; the parties' contributions are to be set in separate definitive agreements.
- Mar 2, 2026
Europe's first live agentic payment with Mastercard[10][19]
Santander and Mastercard complete a live end-to-end payment executed by an AI agent using Mastercard Agent Pay, in a controlled environment through Santander's live payments infrastructure; Finextra reports it is still a pilot, not a commercial rollout.
- Feb 26, 2026
2025 annual report: AI adoption, governance and an AI Studio[5]
About 30,000 employees use advanced AI tools and over 7,000 active agents are deployed; the portfolio holds more than 1,000 data and AI initiatives; the board approved a data and AI corporate framework and appointed a Group Chief Data & AI Officer; EUR 1,713m was allocated to digital transformation in 2025; the group plans its own AI Studio.
- Feb 25, 2026
Investor day: more than EUR 1bn of AI business value by 2028[4][15][16]
Data and AI are called a key lever of ONE Transformation, contributing around one percentage point of cost-to-income improvement; Bloomberg reports about EUR 300m of extra revenue and about EUR 700m of lower costs, with agentic commerce and 'primacy with customers' among the levers.
- Oct 8, 2025
Global Data & AI function created[3]
A cross-group function with three pillars: transform customer experience and operations through AI, make smarter decisions with reliable data, and accelerate business impact through analytical models; partners named are OpenAI, Microsoft and Amazon, with global AI hubs planned.
- Aug 12, 2025
OpenAI collaboration and 'AI-native' ambition[2][17]
ChatGPT Enterprise rolled out to nearly 15,000 employees in two months, with 30,000 expected by year-end (about 15% of the workforce); the group says AI initiatives generated over EUR 200m of savings in 2024 and that AI copilots support more than 40% of contact-centre interactions; mandatory AI training announced for 2026.
Where does Santander use AI today?
| System | What it does | Status | Use case |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI tools for all employees (multi-provider)[1][14] | Microsoft Copilot for everyday productivity plus OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini for specialised needs; access extended from nearly 40,000 to all 185,000 employees on 22 June 2026, with about 35,000 staff trained for over 125,000 hours between 2025 and April 2026. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| Process-automation agents[1] | More than 280 agents in production helping automate manual tasks and end-to-end workflows in credit, fraud, KYC and operations. | In production | Generative & agentic AI |
| AI in software development[1][5] | 17,000 people used agentic AI in software development in May 2026 and 40% of all code in June 2026 was developed by AI; the 2025 annual report cites over 6,000 developers using coding agents. | In production | AI-generated code & coding agents |
| AI voice channels for card queries (UK)[1] | The UK business is beginning to roll out AI in its voice channels, targeting about 240,000 calls (40% of annual volume) resolved through self-service; the capability is also being applied at Santander and Openbank in Spain. | Rolling out | Customer-facing chatbots |
| Card-fraud claims automation (Brazil)[1] | AI in card-fraud claims makes the process around 95% faster, with up to 90% automation and an error rate below 1%. | In production | Fraud detection |
| Openbank anti-money-laundering alert models[1] | AI models process approximately 100,000 AML alerts a year, completing in minutes investigations that used to take hours. | In production | AML / KYC |
| Credit-card eligibility at onboarding (Spain)[1] | Machine learning and real-time data assess at onboarding whether a new customer may be eligible for a credit card from day one. | In production | Credit scoring & underwriting |
| Automated Pricer in global markets[6][8] | A sales tool for equity derivatives and repos that increases pricing automation, serving more client requests and improving funding decisions. | In production | Trading & capital markets |
| Agentic payments with Mastercard Agent Pay and Getnet[10][19][11] | A live Europe-first agent-executed payment in a controlled environment (pilot stage) and Getnet infrastructure for merchants to accept AI-agent-initiated payments, including a first case in Mexico. | Pilot | Generative & agentic AI |
| G42 co-development: advisory, savings and a banking intelligence layer[9] | A memorandum of understanding covering AI-enabled advisory and savings solutions and a banking intelligence layer spanning the group, with G42's Inception and Presight expected to contribute. | Announced | Generative & agentic AI |
| Model-risk scope extended to AI systems[5] | The annual report describes expansion of model-risk management to cover AI systems and promotion of compliance with the EU AI Act; the group also runs an AI management and governance policy over the full lifecycle of use cases. | In production | Model risk management |
Use-case links open the tracker's rules-by-use-case matrix: which documents govern each system type.
What has Santander disclosed in numbers?
| Metric | Value | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Total assets | EUR 1,954,465m[6] | Jun 30, 2026 |
| AI business value target (cost savings plus revenue), annual | more than EUR 1bn by 2028[4][16] | Feb 25, 2026 |
| Split of the 2028 AI target as reported by Bloomberg | about EUR 300m of revenue and about EUR 700m of cost cuts[15] | Feb 25, 2026 |
| AI business value generated, Q1 2026 | EUR 35m[1] | Mar 31, 2026 |
| AI business value generated, H1 2026 | EUR 84m[7] | Jun 30, 2026 |
| Expected AI business value for 2026 | more than EUR 200m[1] | Jun 22, 2026 |
| Employees with AI access | 185,000, up from nearly 40,000 active users[1] | Jun 22, 2026 |
| Process-automation agents in production | more than 280[1] | Jun 22, 2026 |
| Share of code developed by AI | 40%[1] | Jun 30, 2026 |
| Data and AI initiatives in the portfolio | more than 1,000[5] | Dec 31, 2025 |
| Allocated to digital transformation | EUR 1,713m[5] | Dec 31, 2025 |
“The logic is simple: focus on fewer things that can truly move the needle, measure their impact and scale what works across the group.”[1]
Ricardo Martín Manjón · Chief Data & AI Officer · Jun 22, 2026
“This agreement reflects Santander's conviction that artificial intelligence will be foundational to the future of banking, not a feature layered on top of it.”[9]
Ricardo Martín Manjón · Chief Data & AI Officer · Jun 3, 2026
“our global technology platforms continue to improve productivity while we start to capture benefits from AI.”[8]
Héctor Grisi · Chief Executive Officer, on the second-quarter results call · Jul 22, 2026
“As AI agents become part of everyday commerce, building trusted, scalable frameworks will be essential to unlocking their full potential.”[10]
Matías Sánchez · Global Head of Cards and Digital Solutions · Mar 2, 2026
Who runs AI at Santander?
Ricardo Martín Manjón
Group Chief Data & AI Officer (the board appointed the role in 2025, reporting to the Executive Chair)[2][1][5]
Iñaki Bernal
Chief AI Officer, Grupo Santander[13]
Matías Sánchez
Global Head of Cards and Digital Solutions (fronted the Mastercard agentic-payment milestone)[10]
Glenn H. Hutchins
Board director and chair of the innovation and technology committee, which oversaw AI governance in 2025[5]
Which regulators govern Santander's AI?
| Authority | Why it matters here | Documents |
|---|---|---|
| ECB | Banco Santander is a significant institution under direct ECB banking supervision, whose 2026-28 priorities cover digitalisation and AI-related risk, including AI in credit scoring and fraud. | SSM supervisory priorities 2026–28 Supervision Newsletter: AI use cases for credit scoring and fraud detection (Nov 2025) |
| EU AI Act | The annual report says the group promotes compliance with the EU AI Act as it extends model risk to AI systems; credit-scoring and similar uses for EU customers are high-risk under the Act. | Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 EBA factsheet on the AI Act |
| EBA | The EBA's AI adoption work and its AI Act mapping for banks frame how the group documents AI governance across its EU entities. | EBA report: Rising application of AI in EU banking and payments (Sep 2025) |
| UK (BoE / PRA / FCA) | Santander UK and TSB (acquired 30 April 2026) are supervised by the PRA and FCA, where the UK voice-channel AI rollout and PRA model-risk principles apply. | PRA SS1/23 FCA AI Update (Apr 2024) |
| Federal Reserve | Santander Holdings USA is the US intermediate holding company; group AI platforms and providers used by US entities are third-party and model-risk matters (the US bank is covered at /banks/santander-us). | SR 23-4 SR 26-2 |
| FSB | A global systemically important bank spreading generative AI across several US and Gulf providers falls within the FSB's AI monitoring and third-party concentration work. | FSB AI sound practices consultation (June 2026) FSB AI monitoring report (Oct 2025) |
| Basel Committee | Group-wide data governance for AI engages BCBS 239 aggregation principles and the Basel third-party risk principles. | BCBS 239 BCBS Third-Party Risk Principles (Dec 2025) |
| Banco de España | The home national authority that works with the ECB in supervising the group and whose supervision covers the Spanish operations running the group's AI pilots. | |
| Banco Central do Brasil | Santander Brasil is supervised by the Brazilian central bank; the card-fraud claims automation described by the group runs in Brazil. |
What does the public record suggest about Santander's AI strategy?
Analysis by BankingNewsAI from the sources cited on this page. Observations, not advice.
01
Santander counts AI in business value, not savings alone
The EUR 35m (Q1) and EUR 84m (H1) figures combine higher revenue, lower costs and lower loan-loss provisions, a wider definition than cost savings. With a EUR 200m-plus 2026 expectation and a EUR 1bn-plus 2028 target, quarterly results give outside readers a cadence to check against.
02
Five model suppliers, one governance model
Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and G42 sit beside a plan for the group's own AI Studio. The board-approved framework and the AI governance policy are the controls that have to span all of them, which is where supervisors' third-party and concentration questions will land.
03
Agentic payments are a product bet, not only an efficiency tool
A live agent-executed payment in Europe (still a pilot), Getnet's merchant acceptance infrastructure in Latin America and the investor-day mention of agentic commerce show AI being positioned as a revenue and payments line.
04
Open-sourcing AI Lab work is a standards play
Apache 2.0 repositories published without customer data let Santander shape how AI is governed and audited in banking. The group has not said how much of this tooling runs in its own production stack.
05
No AI-attributed headcount figure appears in the sources reviewed
The disclosures describe AI access, training and productivity, but the sources reviewed for this page give no job-loss or job-creation figure attributed to AI.
What is Santander's AI strategy?
Santander's strategy is to be a 'data & AI-first' bank. It has set a target of more than EUR 1bn of business value a year by 2028 from data and AI (cost savings plus revenue), created a Global Data & AI function under a Chief Data & AI Officer, extended AI tools to all 185,000 employees on 22 June 2026, and works with several providers: Microsoft Copilot, OpenAI, Anthropic's Claude, Google's Gemini and G42. It reported EUR 35m of AI business value in Q1 2026 and EUR 84m in the first half, and is also testing agentic payments with Mastercard and Getnet.
Who leads AI at Santander?
Ricardo Martín Manjón is Group Chief Data & AI Officer, a role the board created in 2025 that reports to executive chair Ana Botín. Iñaki Bernal is Chief AI Officer of Grupo Santander and José Manuel de la Chica heads Santander AI Lab.
Which AI providers does Santander use?
Santander says Microsoft Copilot supports everyday productivity, and that a secure multi-provider approach covers specialised capabilities with OpenAI's ChatGPT, Anthropic's Claude, Google's Gemini, startups and other partners, with G42 on AI-enabled banking solutions under a memorandum of understanding signed on 3 June 2026. It says it does not share customer data externally to train third-party models.
How much value has Santander's AI delivered so far?
The group reports EUR 35m of AI business value in the first quarter of 2026 and EUR 84m in the first half, counting higher revenue, lower costs and lower loan-loss provisions, and says it is on track to exceed EUR 200m for 2026. For 2024 it reported over EUR 200m of AI savings on an earlier measure.
Is Santander's US bank covered separately?
Yes. Santander Bank, N.A. and Santander Holdings USA are covered at /banks/santander-us; this page covers the Banco Santander group.
How large is Santander?
Banco Santander reported total assets of EUR 1,954,465m at 30 June 2026 in its first-half financial report published on 21 July 2026.
- Santander turns its AI-first strategy into measurable impact and extends AI access to all 185,000 employees
- Santander's data & AI-first strategy accelerates through OpenAI collaboration
- Driving our transformation with the creation of the Global Data & AI function
- 2026 Santander Investor Day
- 2025 Annual report
- Financial report 2026 - January - June
- Santander adds 12 million customers as underlying profit rises 15% to €7.3 billion in the first half
- BANCO SANTANDER (1SANX.MI) Q2 FY2026 earnings call transcript
- Banco Santander and G42 sign Memorandum of Understanding to explore strategic cooperation in Artificial Intelligence
- Santander and Mastercard complete Europe's first live end-to-end payment executed by an AI agent
- Getnet develops infrastructure that enables businesses to accept AI agent-initiated payments
- Santander publishes AI projects under an Open Source licence to ramp up shared innovation
- Santander and the CSIC join forces to spearhead research into advanced and responsible AI for the future of banking
- AI at Santander: From learning to practical use
- Santander's Botin Sees €1 Billion AI Boost Amid Efficiency Push
- Santander hikes 2028 profit forecast to above 20 billion euros after deals
- Santander partners OpenAI to become 'AI-native' bank
- Santander extends AI access to all employees as business value starts to kick in
- Santander and Mastercard complete Europe's first live agentic AI transaction
- Santander inks AI MoU with Abu Dhabi's G42
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