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If you want to build a customer-first experience, then doing away with innovation focused on product- and business-line verticals is a must. So is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into everything the bank does. Looking back over 2025, Raman Bhatia, group CEO of Starling Bank, said he is most proud of "putting safe, scalable, artificial intelligence tools in the hands of customers." The goal is to help customers manage, protect, and grow their money without leaving the app ecosystem. "We are defining what comes next in the intersection of digital banking and AI," he said. "We're very excited about that space."
He points to two product releases in 2025 that reflect this intersection. One is "Spending Intelligence." The tool allows customers to ask questions in plain English about their finances. For example, "how much did I spend on coffee in 2025?" This gives customers financial insights in a very conversational style, he said.
There is also "Scam Intelligence." This safety feature lets customers upload images of items and ads from online marketplaces and use AI to analyze them for scam indicators. "Elderly people being scammed is a burgeoning issue in the U.S.," Bhatia said. "This tool gives you signals right away to prevent you from making a payment. We've seen a 300% reduction in payment fraud using AI at scale."
Making such tools available quickly and at-scale is a major focus for Bhatia. "The challenge with most large enterprises and AI is they do a lot of proof of concepts, but they don't have the last mile workflow automation integration to deploy the models at scale. They end up in what's called proof of concept purgatory. But we are working on a modern platform with the right level of flexibility, extensibility, and integrations."
He also believes it's critical to deploy AI-tools efficiently across his own enterprise to oil the innovation flywheel. Using a peer-led "AI Champions" model, Starling has rolled out generative AI tools to approximately 80% of eligible staff. AI champions have voluntarily taken up the challenge to educate themselves about AI, participate in bespoke training sessions, and then actively educate their colleagues.
This has embedded AI into the software development lifecycle: in code review, checking costs in the data warehouse, and doing risk assessments before a production release. "We are set up to drive innovation across the board," Bhatia says. Autonomous teams made up of engineers, digital product leaders, conventional banking product teams, and risk and compliance officers pursue innovation opportunities together. "We don't think in product verticals. We don't think in line-of-business-category verticals. We always think 'customer first'."
