Banking group NatWest has announced plans to scale its AI investments signifcantly, citing the technology as a major factor in its annual profit surge.
NatWest announced its full-year results on Friday, revealing a 24% increase in pre-tax profits, which reached £7.7bn.
Speaking on the success the bank saw, NatWest’s group chief innovation officer Scott Marcar noted that 2025 was the year of AI deployment at scale.
Among the milestones achieved by the bank last year was an investment capacity increase of around £100m due to ” the simplification of our processes, the deployment of AI assistants and agents, and our transition to the cloud”, a figure the bank expects to increase in 2026.
NatWest put AI tools, including standard Microsoft Copilot as well as its internal LLM in the hands of all 60,000 of its staff, with more than half participating in additional AI training.
Its major integration of AI also saw the bank hire roughly 1,000 new software engineers in the year as well as appoint its first chief AI research officer, Dr Maja Pantic.
In 2026, NatWest said it would be rolling out AI fraud support, a customer-facing agentic AI financial assistant, a trial of voice-to-voice conversational capability and agentic-based engineering of products.
“In a highly competitive environment, future strength will be decided by how seamlessly a bank operates in service of its customers,” said the bank in its annual report.
“Harnessed correctly, technological advancement and AI can be a game-changing accelerant, reducing complexity and removing bureaucracy to help make decisions faster, deepen relationships and deliver transformed customer experiences.”
