AI is well established in the financial sector, and nowhere is this more evident than in the United Kingdom, which is reputed to have the strongest AI ecosystem in Europe, with London leading the way as a privileged location for AI startups. There are about 120 active AI startups in the United Kingdom, and investment in the sector is growing fast.
Barclays, a British multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in London, is one of the financial institutions that have invested the most in the development and use of AI across their service platforms. Even before the adoption of chatbots, the bank was using algorithms to analyze historical transactions and learn more about its customers. When they did not have specific data for a given user, the algorithm could reproduce it by analyzing similar customers through indicators such as income, age group, and location.
The bank went on to develop chatbots to handle customers' queries, first testing them through its African subsidiary, Absa. Chatbanking, the bank chatbot application, meets customers where they are active the most-on the world's most popular social media channels. Chatbanking extends the bank's services to Twitter and Facebook Messenger, allowing customers to access their bank services within their preferred social media applications and perform all routine operations, including payment and purchase of off-bank services, through a convenient conversational interface.
Chatbots generally come with a friendly interface and short, snappy names (like Chip, one of Barclays's bots, which comes with its own App). While assisting customers, they learn how much is spent on single items and use this information to compute savings profiles and suggest possible alternatives.
Barclays will continue to roll out chatbots in more countries and include other operations, following the examples of other leading financial institutions such as Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.

Questions for Case 12.7
1. Why did Barclays invest so heavily in AI? Did the bank’s location factor into this decision?
2. What makes AI and machine learning well-suited to banking and investment use?
3. Where did Barclays first test its chatbot, and why?
4. Is Barclay the only major financial institution to have adopted chatbots across mobile platforms for customer use?