Itaú expands generative AI across retail and employee workflows

The bank is moving from a limited rollout to a service it wants available to all customers by the end of 2026.

Brazil’s Itaú is rolling out OpenAI-based generative AI across its retail and employee workflows, using a conversational product called ia.i and a governance layer called IARA. The bank says ia.i reached about 300,000 customers in its first phase and it wants the service available to its whole customer base by the end of 2026. Itaú also says OpenAI models help power several linked solutions because they can work across different contexts, which is important in a heavily regulated financial business. On the operations side, the bank says one legal use case already draws on more than 90 million documents and has produced efficiency gains of 20% to 80% in department processes.