BBVA has doubled the number of employees working on artificial intelligence to over 400 by opening new “AI factories” in Mexico and Turkey.
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The Mexican and Turkish outposts join an existing AI research center in Spain.
To staff the new centers, BBVA hired 230 new professionals, in addition to the 200 at its Spanish headquarters. The new hires include data scientists, machine learning engineers, developers, data architects and digital product experts.
The new hires are part of a global technology talent recruitment strategy at the Spanish lender. Over the past two years, BBVA has added 7,187 data and technology professionals to its workforce – a number that is expected to increase further with 2,700 new hires in 2024. Of these, 1,225 are in Spain for the bank’s headquarters in Madrid, Bilbao and Barcelona.
Among the projects that BBVA AI Factory is currently working on is the development of a fully conversational virtual assistant that simplifies the user experience in digital channels, or the development of “Copilot” tools that help managers increase the efficiency of their work Improving the customer relationship model.
“We focus entirely on the needs of the business areas. We develop our analytical components accordingly to address them, which allows us to transfer the maximum value of AI to customers,” explains Ignacio Teulón, global head of the BBVA AI Factory. “But at the same time, our overarching approach allows us to see how we can reuse these ‘Lego pieces’ for other, completely different business challenges. In this way we optimize our work.”
The opening of the new centers comes just months after BBVA became the first European bank to form an alliance with OpenAI, deploying 3,000 ChatGPT Enterprise licenses among its employees to increase productivity and process efficiency while stimulating innovation.