BBVA and OpenAI Deploy ChatGPT Enterprise to 120,000 Staff

BBVA and OpenAI Expand Partnership to Roll Out ChatGPT Enterprise Across 120,000 Employees

Spain's multinational banking giant BBVA and OpenAI have announced a multi-year strategic alliance to accelerate AI integration in global banking, deploying ChatGPT Enterprise to all 120,000 BBVA employees worldwide. This expansion, revealed on December 12, 2025, builds on nearly two years of collaboration and aims to create AI-native banking experiences that personalize customer service, optimize operations, and empower staff with advanced tools.

The partnership escalates BBVA's AI adoption from pilot phases to enterprise-wide implementation, positioning the bank as a leader in financial technology transformation. BBVA Chairman Carlos Torres Vila emphasized the bank's pioneering role, stating, “We were pioneers in the digital and mobile transformation, and we are now entering the AI era with even greater ambition.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman echoed this, noting, “BBVA is a strong example of how a large financial institution can adopt AI with real ambition and speed.”

Background and Evolution of the Partnership

BBVA, headquartered in Bilbao, Spain, and operating in over 30 countries with more than 70 million customers, initiated its work with OpenAI in May 2024. The initial rollout provided 3,300 ChatGPT accounts to select employees, focusing on testing generative AI for internal productivity. Early results proved compelling: usage expanded to 11,000 employees, who created thousands of custom GPTs tailored to banking tasks. Employees reported saving nearly three hours per week on routine activities, with over 80% engaging daily.

This success prompted the current multi-year program, announced just days ago, to equip every one of BBVA's 120,000 global staff with ChatGPT Enterprise. The platform offers enterprise-grade security, data privacy controls, and unlimited access to advanced AI models like GPT-4o, enabling scalable deployment without compromising compliance in regulated sectors like finance.

Key Features and AI Applications in Banking

The collaboration targets three core pillars: enhancing customer interactions, streamlining internal operations, and fostering an AI-native banking environment.

• Customer-Facing Innovations: BBVA and OpenAI are co-developing an intelligent conversational assistant that anticipates financial needs, such as proactive loan suggestions or investment advice based on real-time data analysis. This aims to deliver hyper-personalized services, transforming static banking apps into proactive advisors.

• Employee Empowerment: Bankers gain tools to analyze complex data faster, draft personalized client communications, and automate compliance checks. Specialized training programs and adoption models ensure secure, consistent use across departments.

• Operational Efficiency: AI will optimize back-office processes like fraud detection, risk assessment, and regulatory reporting, reducing manual workloads and errors at scale.

BBVA's prior experiments demonstrated tangible gains, with custom GPTs handling tasks from code generation to market research summaries. The full rollout includes governance frameworks to mitigate risks like data leakage or biased outputs, critical in finance.

Strategic Leaders and Visionary Quotes

At the helm, Carlos Torres Vila, BBVA's Chairman since 2021, drives the AI agenda, leveraging his experience in digital shifts. He envisions AI creating "a smarter, more proactive, and completely personalized banking experience, anticipating the needs of every client." Sam Altman, OpenAI's CEO, praised BBVA's pace, highlighting how the partnership embeds AI into "the core of their products and operations."

This aligns with BBVA's New Gen Banking Plan, a €3 billion investment through 2025 in technology, where AI plays a central role alongside cloud migration and data analytics.

Industry Impact and Broader Implications

This deal marks a watershed for fintech and AI in finance, as BBVA becomes one of the first major banks to grant universal access to frontier AI models. It signals a shift from siloed pilots to pervasive integration, potentially setting benchmarks for peers like JPMorgan Chase or HSBC, which have explored similar tools but at smaller scales.

Statistics underscore the momentum: Global AI spending in banking is projected to hit $97 billion by 2027, up from $28 billion in 2024, driven by generative AI for personalization and efficiency. BBVA's move could accelerate this, with implications for customer retention—personalized AI interactions boost satisfaction by up to 20% per industry studies—and cost savings, as automation trims operational expenses by 15-30%.

Challenges remain: Regulators like the European Central Bank demand rigorous AI risk management, including explainability and bias audits. BBVA addresses this through OpenAI's secure Enterprise tier, which supports fine-tuning without data retention. Competitors may follow, intensifying an AI arms race in banking.

Future Outlook and Competitive Edge

Looking ahead, the partnership promises iterative advancements, including multimodal AI for voice/video banking and agentic systems for autonomous workflows. BBVA plans quarterly reviews to measure ROI, targeting metrics like employee productivity gains and customer Net Promoter Scores.

For the industry, this cements Europe's fintech leadership, with Spain's BBVA challenging U.S. giants. As AI evolves, banks like BBVA risk obsolescence without bold adoption, but pioneers reap first-mover advantages in loyalty and innovation.

This collaboration not only transforms BBVA but redefines global banking, blending human expertise with AI's predictive power for a more intuitive financial future.