Lloyds Banking Group Cuts Customer Query Response Time with New AI Hub
Lloyds Banking Group has launched Athena, a generative AI knowledge hub that significantly speeds up how customer-facing employees find information. This new tool scans through 13,000 internal articles, providing quick answers to a wide range of customer questions.
The impact is clear: average search time has dropped from 59 seconds to just 20 seconds, a 66% reduction. For telephone banking teams alone, this means saving around 4,000 hours previously spent searching for information. Less search time means customers get faster responses, improving their overall experience.
Wide Adoption and Future Plans
Since its rollout in early 2025, Athena has been used by 21,000 employees for over 2.1 million searches. Lloyds plans to expand Athena’s reach to more customer support roles, expecting it to handle up to 40 million searches by the end of the year.
Ranil Boteju, Lloyds’ group chief data and analytics officer, explains that Athena frees employees from time-consuming information searches so they can focus on more complex customer needs. He highlights that Athena is a major step forward in improving efficiency and customer service.
Technology Behind Athena and Business Impact
Athena was built using Google Cloud’s Vertex AI platform, combining machine learning and generative AI. Lloyds expects this technology to contribute at least £50 million in revenue growth and productivity gains during 2025.
For those working in customer support, tools like Athena demonstrate how AI can streamline daily workflows. Reducing time spent searching for information means you can spend more time solving problems and providing personalized help.
- Faster access to accurate information
- More efficient handling of customer queries
- Opportunity to focus on complex or bespoke requests
- Significant time savings across teams
If you want to learn more about how AI tools are changing customer support roles, check out Complete AI Training’s courses by job. They offer practical ways to integrate AI into your daily work.
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