Founded in 1857, BBVA operates across Europe, Mexico, South America, Türkiye, and the U.S., serving tens of millions of customers. Long recognized as one of the world’s most innovative financial institutions, BBVA is now applying AI at global scale—not as a pilot, but as a new way of working and a core capability across the entire organization.
“We’ve been having a lot of debates on how to make AI part of our business strategy, not a tech effort that sits on the side,” says Antonio Bravo, Global Head of Data & AI, BBVA.
We sat down with Bravo and Elena Alfaro, Head of Global AI Adoption, to hear how the bank is scaling AI adoption across teams and business units.
> "We deployed initially to 3,000 employees, then very quickly jumped to 11,000 employees. Now we've deployed to the entire employee base, which is over 120,000 employees"
Antonio Bravo, Global Head of Data & AI, BBVA
#### Results at a glance
#### Inside the rollout
BBVA built its AI program on trust, governance, and structured learning—enabling scale without compromising security. “We created this atmosphere of being in a safe place to learn and to use AI,” says Alfaro.
Rather than pushing experimentation underground, BBVA brought it into a trusted environment and reduced shadow-AI risk by giving employees secure tools and clear guardrails. “Instead of shadow AI… we gave them a platform that was safe so they could start experimenting,” Alfaro notes, “and we gave specific training for 250 leaders, including our CEO and chairman.”
This structured approach is now showing results at scale.
In Peru, one internally built assistant is now used by more than 3,000 employees, reducing query handling time from around 7.5 minutes to about 1 minute—an ~80% reduction. Adoption is expanding across the network.
Once employees experienced value, engagement accelerated organically—to the point where some joked that if ChatGPT were taken away, they’d “have to leave.”
> “Once you start using it, it's very sticky and… you feel it helps you a lot.”
Antonio Bravo, Global Head of Data & AI, BBVA
#### Leadership lessons from BBVA
BBVA has moved past experimentation and pilots. The bank is now extending AI from individual productivity into workflow automation, operational systems, and customer-facing channels—including products like _Blue_, its digital assistant built with OpenAI models.
The bank also plans to continue broadening access to AI tools and capabilities across the organization over time, including the continued strategic deployment of OpenAI technologies. “Once adoption starts,” say Bravo, “it accelerates.”
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