Lloyds Bank Launches Generative AI Tool and Blockchain Pilot

Lloyds Bank Launches Generative AI Tool ‘Athena’ and Blockchain Pilot

Lloyds Banking Group has introduced Athena, a generative AI tool designed to revolutionize customer service and accelerate the bank’s ongoing digital transformation. This marks Lloyds’ first extensive deployment of generative AI technology. Athena functions as an advanced knowledge hub, enabling customer service staff to swiftly access and navigate the bank’s extensive repository of 13,000 internal information articles.

Since its launch earlier this year, Athena has facilitated over 2.1 million searches by 21,000 employees. The bank reports that the tool has reduced average search times from 59 seconds to just 20 seconds, effectively cutting customer wait times by two-thirds. Serving 28 million customers and managing approximately two million service interactions monthly across phone and digital channels, Lloyds anticipates that Athena will significantly enhance the efficiency of staff responses to customer inquiries.

Enhancing Customer Service and Operational Efficiency

Pete Steel, consumer engagement director at Lloyds Banking Group, emphasized the importance of delivering exceptional customer service, stating that Athena enables colleagues to support customers more quickly and effectively than ever before. The bank plans to expand Athena’s application across additional customer-facing teams, aiming to reach 40 million searches by the end of 2025. Within telephone banking alone, Athena is expected to save over 4,000 hours annually by accelerating internal searches, allowing staff to focus on resolving more complex customer issues.

Athena’s deployment is a central element of Lloyds’ broader digital transformation strategy, which projects at least £50 million in revenue growth and productivity gains from AI initiatives by 2025. Ranil Boteju, group chief data and analytics officer, described Athena as a “monumental leap” in the bank’s digital evolution, characterizing the technology as a revolutionary advancement that signals the future of work.

Despite these promising developments, Lloyds faces challenges typical of large-scale AI adoption, including regulatory compliance, integration with legacy systems, and maintaining robust data security. As the global banking sector intensifies investment in AI—particularly generative AI, which is expected to unlock substantial value—industry observers are closely monitoring how such initiatives will affect Lloyds’ competitive positioning, customer trust, and operational efficiency. The move may prompt competitors to accelerate their own AI and blockchain projects, potentially catalyzing a broader industry shift toward advanced technologies.

Blockchain Pilot Demonstrates Tokenisation Potential

In parallel with its AI initiatives, Lloyds has launched a blockchain pilot in collaboration with Aberdeen Investments and digital asset exchange Archax. The pilot involved using tokenised units of Aberdeen’s money market fund and UK government gilts as collateral for foreign exchange trades. These assets were issued and transferred via Archax’s FCA-regulated infrastructure on the Hedera Hashgraph blockchain.

The trial seeks to demonstrate that digital assets can function as regulated collateral in high-volume trading environments, with the potential to enhance operational efficiency, automate compliance processes, and reduce risk. Emily Smart, chief product officer at Aberdeen Investments, highlighted the pilot’s ability to streamline processes and increase efficiency. Peter Left, head of digital finance at Lloyds, described the initiative as a significant advancement in showcasing how tokenisation can improve collateral efficiency and unlock new trading opportunities. Graham Rodford, CEO of Archax, called the project “another key digital milestone” for the UK’s financial system.

By advancing both AI and blockchain technologies, Lloyds Banking Group is positioning itself at the forefront of digital innovation within a rapidly evolving financial landscape.