# Santander US: Research, patents and partnerships

Source: https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/santander-us/ai-research-patents-partnerships
Last updated: Oct 16, 2026

*Part of the [Santander US AI strategy profile](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/santander-us).*

## What AI research, patents and partnerships does Santander have?

Santander's AI partnerships are signed at group level and run on a 'secure, multi-provider approach': Microsoft Copilot for everyday productivity, OpenAI's ChatGPT (nearly 15,000 staff in Europe and the Americas within two months of the August 2025 tie-up), Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini, plus a June 3, 2026 memorandum with Abu Dhabi's G42. Agent payments were piloted with Mastercard (Europe's first live AI-agent payment, March 2026) and Visa (five Latin American markets). Research runs through Santander AI Lab, led by José Manuel de la Chica, which has open-sourced more than a dozen projects and the A2K agent-to-knowledge protocol, and through a three-year agreement signed with Spain's CSIC on June 30, 2026 on explainable and responsible AI and quantum-AI; the bank says it has put €84 million into research with the CSIC and CRUE over five years. A May 2026 Santander X challenge with IBM seeks quantum and AI start-ups in ten countries, including the US. In the US the named partners are FICO, for machine-learning credit risk in auto, and AutoFi. Santander has no AI patent on record for a US entity; the one Santander Consumer USA application found does not describe AI. ([Banco Santander](https://www.santander.com/en/stories/santander-turns-its-ai-first-strategy-into-measurable-impact-and-extends-ai-access-to-all-185000-employees), [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/stories/santander-data-ai-first-strategy-accelerates-through-openai-collaboration), [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/press-room/press-releases/2026/06/banco-santander-and-g42-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-to-explore-strategic-cooperation-in-artificial-intelligence), [Banco Santander](https://www.santander.com/en/press-room/press-releases/2026/03/santander-and-mastercard-complete-europes-first-live-end-to-end-payment-executed-by-an-ai-agent), [PYMNTS](https://pymnts.com/partnerships/2026/santander-and-visa-launch-latam-agentic-payments-project), [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/press-room/press-releases/2026/06/santander-and-the-csic-join-forces-to-spearhead-research-into-advanced-and-responsible-ai-for-the-future-of-banking), [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/stories/santander-publishes-ai-projects-under-an-open-source-licence-to-ramp-up-shared-innovation), [Banco Santander](https://www.santander.com/en/stories/a2k-a-new-protocol-for-connecting-ai-agents-to-governed-auditable-enterprise-knowledge), [Santander US](https://santanderus.com/news_press_article/santander-seeks-companies-with-the-best-solutions-in-quantum-computing-and-artificial-intelligence), [FICO (Business Wire)](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250507284930/en), [Santander US](https://santanderus.com/news_press_article/santander-consumer-launches-drive-together-offering-dealers-pre-qualified-leads-from-web-traffic), [Google Patents (USPTO)](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20230377033A1/en))

## Who are Santander's AI partners?

Group agreements unless marked US. Santander does not say which group tools US staff use.

| Partner | Type | What it is | Date | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| OpenAI | Model provider | ChatGPT Enterprise for nearly 15,000 employees in Europe and the Americas in two months; 30,000 targeted | August 13, 2025 | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/stories/santander-data-ai-first-strategy-accelerates-through-openai-collaboration) |
| Microsoft | Productivity AI | Microsoft Copilot, including Microsoft 365 Copilot, for everyday productivity for all employees | June 22, 2026 | [Banco Santander](https://www.santander.com/en/stories/santander-turns-its-ai-first-strategy-into-measurable-impact-and-extends-ai-access-to-all-185000-employees) |
| Anthropic and Google | Model providers | Claude and Gemini within the multi-provider approach for specialized capabilities | June 22, 2026 | [Banco Santander](https://www.santander.com/en/stories/santander-turns-its-ai-first-strategy-into-measurable-impact-and-extends-ai-access-to-all-185000-employees) |
| G42 (Inception, Presight) | Strategic memorandum | AI-enabled advisory and savings, a banking intelligence layer and agentic financial services; definitive agreements pending | June 3, 2026 | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/press-room/press-releases/2026/06/banco-santander-and-g42-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-to-explore-strategic-cooperation-in-artificial-intelligence) |
| Mastercard | Payments | Europe's first live end-to-end payment executed by an AI agent, in a controlled environment | March 2, 2026 | [Banco Santander](https://www.santander.com/en/press-room/press-releases/2026/03/santander-and-mastercard-complete-europes-first-live-end-to-end-payment-executed-by-an-ai-agent) |
| Visa | Payments | Visa Intelligent Commerce agentic purchase pilots in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay | March 12, 2026 | [PYMNTS](https://pymnts.com/partnerships/2026/santander-and-visa-launch-latam-agentic-payments-project) |
| Google Cloud | Cloud | Santander CIB runs the Gravity core platform in Google Cloud, handling more than a million accounting operations a day | December 11, 2023 | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/press-room/press-releases/2023/12/santander-passes-key-milestone-in-its-transformation-after-migrating-its-cib-banking-platform-to-the-cloud) |
| FICO (US) | Credit analytics | Machine-learning credit-risk models for US auto on FICO Platform; 2025 FICO Decisions Award | May 7, 2025 | [FICO (Business Wire)](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250507284930/en) |
| AutoFi (US) | Auto retail software | Behind the Drive platform and Drive Together dealer tool; not described as AI | July 8, 2025 | [Santander US](https://santanderus.com/news_press_article/santander-consumer-launches-drive-together-offering-dealers-pre-qualified-leads-from-web-traffic) |
| IBM, Bluzec and Oxentia Foundation | Start-up challenge | Santander X Global Challenge 'The Quantum AI Leap' for start-ups and scale-ups in ten countries including the US; €120,000 in prizes | May 11, 2026 | [Santander US](https://santanderus.com/news_press_article/santander-seeks-companies-with-the-best-solutions-in-quantum-computing-and-artificial-intelligence) |

## What AI research does Santander fund or publish?

| Output | What it is | Date | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| CSIC research agreement | Three-year renewable partnership on advanced, responsible and explainable AI, causal inference, privacy, security and hybrid quantum-AI; industrial doctorates and joint tenders | June 30, 2026 | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/press-room/press-releases/2026/06/santander-and-the-csic-join-forces-to-spearhead-research-into-advanced-and-responsible-ai-for-the-future-of-banking) |
| Research funding | €84 million over the past five years to academic research programs with the CSIC and Spain's university rectors' council (CRUE) | June 30, 2026 | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/press-room/press-releases/2026/06/santander-and-the-csic-join-forces-to-spearhead-research-into-advanced-and-responsible-ai-for-the-future-of-banking) |
| Open-source AI projects | 'Over a dozen' AI projects shared on GitHub, 11 of them chosen for direct banking use, including gen-fraud-graph (synthetic fraud networks) and mech-gov-framework (language-model governance); no real customer data | June 25, 2026 | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/stories/santander-publishes-ai-projects-under-an-open-source-licence-to-ramp-up-shared-innovation) |
| Autoguardrails | Open-source tool that tests candidate guardrail policies against ordinary and adversarial inputs and keeps only those that improve protection | July 27, 2026 | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/stories/engineering-the-loop-how-santander-makes-ai-agents-reliable) |
| A2K protocol | Open specification for enterprise AI agents to discover, query, cite and audit governed knowledge bases, over MCP, A2A and HTTPS | September 23, 2026 | [Banco Santander](https://www.santander.com/en/stories/a2k-a-new-protocol-for-connecting-ai-agents-to-governed-auditable-enterprise-knowledge) |
| 'The New European Frontier of B2B AI' | AI Lab and Fundación General CSIC report arguing for small and specialized models and 'sovereign RAG' in regulated processes | July 24, 2026 | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/stories/europe-approach-to-new-ai-vertical-specialization-data-sovereignty-and-regulatory-trust) |

## Does Santander hold AI patents in the US?

None was found. The only patent filing found for a Santander US entity is US20230377033A1, a Santander Consumer USA application published November 23, 2023 on simulating a loan payment structure on an interactive interface; its abstract does not describe AI. ([Google Patents (USPTO)](https://patents.google.com/patent/US20230377033A1/en))

Santander's stated route for its AI work is open source rather than patents: the AI Lab says it opened up projects 'without real customer data' so others can prove systems are 'secure, fair, robust and auditable', and published A2K as an open specification. ([Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/stories/santander-publishes-ai-projects-under-an-open-source-licence-to-ramp-up-shared-innovation), [Banco Santander](https://www.santander.com/en/stories/a2k-a-new-protocol-for-connecting-ai-agents-to-governed-auditable-enterprise-knowledge))

## What does the Santander profile record on this topic?

| Date | Move | Detail | Sources |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sep 23, 2026 | Santander AI Lab launches A2K, a protocol for agent-to-knowledge access | An open specification, running over MCP, A2A and HTTPS, that lets enterprise AI agents discover, select, query, cite, audit and reconcile knowledge bases with scoped authority and lifecycle management. | [Banco Santander](https://www.santander.com/en/stories/a2k-a-new-protocol-for-connecting-ai-agents-to-governed-auditable-enterprise-knowledge) |
| Jun 25, 2026 | Santander AI Lab publishes 11 open-source projects | Apache 2.0 repositories including gen-fraud-graph (synthetic fraud networks) and mech-gov-framework (language-model governance mechanisms); no real customer data. | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/stories/santander-publishes-ai-projects-under-an-open-source-licence-to-ramp-up-shared-innovation) |
| Jun 3, 2026 | Group signs AI memorandum with G42 | Covers AI-enabled advisory and savings, a banking intelligence layer and agentic financial services, with G42's Inception and Presight; definitive agreements are still to be signed. | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/press-room/press-releases/2026/06/banco-santander-and-g42-sign-memorandum-of-understanding-to-explore-strategic-cooperation-in-artificial-intelligence) |
| Mar 2, 2026 | Mastercard Agent Pay: Europe's first live agent payment | A controlled-environment payment initiated by an AI agent through Santander's live payments infrastructure; the group's Matías Sánchez leads cards and digital solutions. | [Banco Santander](https://www.santander.com/en/press-room/press-releases/2026/03/santander-and-mastercard-complete-europes-first-live-end-to-end-payment-executed-by-an-ai-agent), [PYMNTS](https://pymnts.com/news/artificial-intelligence/2026/mastercard-santander-mark-agentic-payment-milestone) |
| Aug 13, 2025 | Group tie-up with OpenAI | ChatGPT Enterprise reaches nearly 15,000 employees across Europe and the Americas within two months; the group targets 30,000 users. | [Banco Santander](https://santander.com/en/stories/santander-data-ai-first-strategy-accelerates-through-openai-collaboration), [FinTech Global](https://fintech.global/2025/08/13/santander-partners-with-openai-to-drive-ai-first-banking) |
| May 7, 2025 | FICO award for machine-learning credit risk | The US auto business wins a 2025 FICO Decisions Award for AI, Machine Learning & Optimization for rebuilding credit-risk modelling on FICO Platform. | [FICO (Business Wire)](https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250507284930/en) |

## Common questions

### Does Santander work with OpenAI?

Yes, at group level. Santander announced its OpenAI collaboration on August 13, 2025, when nearly 15,000 employees in Europe and the Americas had ChatGPT Enterprise within two months and 30,000 were targeted. Since June 2026 OpenAI's ChatGPT sits alongside Anthropic's Claude and Google's Gemini in a multi-provider approach, with Microsoft Copilot for everyday productivity.

### What is Santander's agreement with G42?

A memorandum of understanding signed on June 3, 2026 with the Abu Dhabi technology group G42, covering AI-enabled advisory and savings, a banking intelligence layer and agentic financial services with G42 companies Inception and Presight. Definitive agreements had not been signed.

### What AI research does Santander fund?

It signed a three-year renewable agreement with Spain's CSIC on June 30, 2026 for research on advanced, responsible and explainable AI, privacy, security and hybrid quantum-AI, and says it has allocated €84 million in five years to academic research with the CSIC and CRUE. Santander AI Lab also publishes open-source tools and reports.

### Does Santander have AI patents?

None was found for a US entity. The only Santander US patent filing found is a 2023 Santander Consumer USA application on simulating loan payments, which does not describe AI. The group publishes its AI tools as open source, including 11 projects in June 2026 and the A2K protocol in September 2026.

### Which AI partners are specific to Santander's US business?

FICO, whose platform runs the machine-learning credit-risk models in Santander's US auto business, and AutoFi, behind the Drive dealer platform. The May 2026 Santander X quantum-AI challenge with IBM is open to US start-ups. Other AI partners, from OpenAI to G42, are group agreements without a US breakdown.
## Deeper on Santander

- [What is Santander's AI strategy in the United States?](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/santander-us/ai-strategy)
- [How does Santander govern AI responsibly?](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/santander-us/responsible-ai)
- [What technology stack does Santander run in the United States?](https://www.bankingnewsai.com/banks/santander-us/technology-stack)


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