BBVA has expanded its use of generative AI to analyse customer interactions across multiple channels, moving beyond traditional satisfaction surveys to gain a broader view of customer experience.

The Spanish bank said it now uses AI to process hundreds of thousands of customer interactions, including phone calls, chat conversations, complaints, and digital interactions. It said the technology helps identify customer needs and pain points more quickly, allowing it to deliver more personalised support while complying with data protection regulations.

In Spain, BBVA analyses transcripts of phone calls and conversations through its “My Conversations” channel to understand why customers contact the bank. In Mexico, the technology analyses more than 220,000 monthly calls between customers and remote relationship managers, as well as around 4,000 monthly calls from business customers to customer service centres.

The bank said the system identifies issues across millions of conversations that would previously have been difficult to detect. It can also link abandoned transactions in the mobile banking app with later customer support enquiries to identify the underlying causes of problems and improve digital services.

BBVA has also integrated generative AI into its analysis of Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys. In Mexico, the bank processes between 10,000 and 20,000 surveys each day.

Rather than analysing numerical scores alone, BBVA said the tool categorises customer comments, identifies common causes of dissatisfaction, and combines those findings with data from digital channels to help teams identify and resolve issues more quickly.

The bank also provides relationship managers with AI-generated summaries of customers' recent interactions before conversations take place, giving them additional context to support more personalised service.

BBVA said it now plans to develop AI models capable of identifying customer needs and issues in near real time, allowing it to respond more quickly and provide more personalised support.

"For years, we've asked our customers what they thought about their experience,” said David Arconada, global head of listen & know your customers at BBVA. “Today, we can build a comprehensive view of their interactions with the bank by analysing hundreds of thousands of conversations, helping us better understand what they need, what concerns them, and where they encounter difficulties.

"We're entering a new era of customer insight, with the goal of turning that knowledge into richer, more personalised, and more distinctive relationships."

In December, BBVA announced a multi-year AI transformation programme with OpenAI, which will see it provide ChatGPT Enterprise to all 120,000 of its global employees.

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