British universal bank Barclays is widening its strategic collaboration with Anthropic to deploy secure, enterprise-grade AI across its global operations. The bank says the expanded rollout aims to accelerate software development, modernize legacy systems and improve operational efficiency.
Adoption targets and timeline
As part of the expansion, Barclays expects Claude Code to be adopted by 50% of its developer population by the end of 2026 and for a majority of its software engineers to be using it in 2027. Barclays notes that integrating AI across a large, regulated organisation requires both capable technology and disciplined governance.
Intended impact on work and customer outcomes
Barclays frames the Claude rollout as more than adopting a new tool: the bank intends to reimagine processes, enhance customer and client experiences, and build a simpler, more efficient organisation within a secure, well-governed environment. Anne Marie Darling, Group Co-Chief Operating Officer at Barclays, said the true measure of technology is the impact on customers, clients and colleagues and the outcomes it enables.
Craig Bright, Group Co-Chief Operating Officer at Barclays, added that software engineering and cyber security are being reshaped by increasingly capable AI systems. At Barclays, Claude is being used to modernize legacy platforms, improve software quality and let technical experts focus on the most complex challenges.
Existing applications: Colleague Knowledge Assistant and Global Markets
One live example is the Colleague Knowledge Assistant, which helps Barclays UK employees find answers faster when supporting the bank’s more than 20 million UK retail customers. The capability has been live since 2025 and is powered by Claude using a retrieval-augmented generation architecture. More than 16,000 colleagues have adopted the assistant and it has handled over one million searches, producing faster access to information and quicker customer support.
In Barclays’ Global Markets business, Claude models are used to streamline processing and management of client enquiries. Teams use the models to classify, enrich and decide the optimal processing route for incoming emails, helping prioritisation and ensuring requests include the information operations colleagues need. The platform processes roughly 120,000 emails per day, reducing manual handling while enabling staff to identify and act on relevant information more efficiently.
Responsible scaling and governance
Barclays says responsible deployment remains central as it scales AI: the bank applies robust governance, security controls and human oversight to AI use cases to ensure the technology is deployed safely and effectively across the organisation.
Paul Smith, Chief Commercial Officer at Anthropic, described the Barclays partnership as a significant UK milestone for Anthropic. He noted that Claude already helps 16,000 Barclays colleagues find answers for customers, sorts 120,000 emails a day, and is expected to be in the hands of most Barclays engineers by 2027, adding that few institutions hold AI to such high standards.
Looking ahead
The expanded partnership reflects Barclays’ longer-term commitment to using AI to improve productivity, strengthen resilience and improve customer and client outcomes. By combining Anthropic’s frontier AI capabilities with Barclays’ emphasis on responsible innovation, the organisations aim to scale practical AI applications across one of the world’s largest financial institutions.
