The AI strategy of Groupe BPCE

The rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming practices in people’s personal and professional lives. Within Groupe BPCE, we are pursuing and supporting this new technological transition by ensuring that people remain the central focus of our approach.

AI dedicated to improving performance and simplifying processes for our customers and staff

At Groupe BPCE, we are convinced that generative AI represents an exceptional opportunity for us to reinvent our business activities and improve our customers’ experience. This is why we take a user-focused approach geared to enabling AI to boost performance and simplify processes for our customers and staff. For this technology to make a real difference in our business activities, it is crucial that every employee should embrace it and use it in their day-to-day work.

In its VISION 2030 strategic plan, the Group bases its action on two foundational principles:

  • AI for all, to simplify the day-to-day lives of our employees and customers,
  • Transformative AI, to create economic value and build the bank of the future.

Broadly speaking, Groupe BPCE is committed to rolling out responsible and transparent AI, upholding ethical principles, data privacy, and current regulations (GDPR, AI Act, etc.). We are also committed to ensuring that our AI products are fully aligned with our cooperative values and our role as a trusted third party.

The deployment of this strategy relies on a full-service organization dedicated to AI and Data, offering end-to-end expertise throughout the value chain.

Yves Tyrode
Yves Tyrode Chief Executive Officer, Digital & Payments

The adoption of AI for all: an essential prerequisite for our transformation

The key to success lies in AI being adopted by the largest possible number of people. We have rolled out a comprehensive training program, designed with expert input and tailored to the specific requirements of each business line.

This support helps promote the everyday adoption of AI, as embodied by our secure, in-house generative AI hub known as MAiA. This hub offers tools, training, a secure chat function, and ready-to-use expert prompts and assistants to support everyone in the wide variety of their daily tasks. These assistants have been created jointly with the business lines and users themselves.

Our goal is to have 50% of our employees using AI by 2026. In just a few months, more than 40,000 employees have already adopted our generative AI tools.

Luc Barnaud Chief AI & Data Officer, Groupe BPCE

AI at the service of our business lines, to create new value

In our ‘transformative AI’ actions, we are focusing our efforts on applications with high return-on-investment potential, targeting five priority areas capable of creating most value in terms of net banking income and cost avoidance by 2026:

  • AI at the service of customer advisors and the simplification of front-to-back processes (priorities: assistance and loans),
  • Simplifying the digital experience for our 13 million customers and expanding services delivered via mobile apps,
  • Transforming specialized customer relationship centers (12 million calls/year),
  • Combating fraud (11 billion annual payment transactions),
  • AI for IT professions (5,000 developers).

Our goal is clear: for every euro invested in these priority projects, we aim to gain one euro by 2026.

AI at the service of the customer experience to enrich our relationship models

Among our five priority areas, three directly concern our customer relationship. Our aim is to combine the best of the human and digital experience, giving our customers the freedom to choose the channel that suits them best, and to use AI to enrich the human relationship established between our customers and their advisors.

We are transforming the customer relationship thanks to AI, making it simpler, closer, and more customized. AI enables us to automate repetitive tasks, to reduce waiting times significantly, and to provide instant responses, as exemplified by our virtual assistant available via the Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne mobile apps. AI also helps us anticipate our customers’ needs and preferences, enabling us to offer them a range of tailored services.

Training in AI and developing the cultural integration of this technology: mobilizing our 100,000 employees

With more than 100,000 employees with diverse profiles and working in different professional areas, both at the local level in France and in the international arena, providing training in AI and ensuring its integration in our corporate culture represent two crucial challenges. We are taking action simultaneously on three fronts:

  • The AI & Data division supports the transformation of the Group’s business lines and companies while simultaneously ensuring the effective management of risks. The scope of this effort covers activities related to data governance and data quality, data science use cases, data visualization and AI, and the platforms and tools provided for Groupe BPCE entities.
  • The Data & AI Campus offers a full range of training opportunities – using in-person or e-learning formats – focused on the fundamentals of a Data & AI approach (such as the responsible use of data) and centered on the development of skills via training paths tailored to different profiles (executives, data managers, data scientists, general public, etc.).
  • Awareness and adoption programs are provided throughout the year to promote technology uptake and the development of the use of this technology through various communication campaigns, events, and tutorials.