Ana Botín

Ana Botín (born 1960) is the fourth generation of her family to lead Banco Santander, taking over as executive chair in 2014 after running its UK bank. Under her, the Spanish group has grown into a global retail and digital bank serving more customers than JPMorgan Chase — and, lately, into one of Europe’s most aggressive corporate adopters of AI.

Making AI part of a bank’s DNA

In August 2025 Santander announced mandatory AI training for its entire workforce, part of a plan to make the technology “part of its DNA.” The bank rolled out ChatGPT Enterprise through a collaboration with OpenAI, reaching nearly 15,000 employees within two months on the way to tens of thousands, and says AI already generated over €200 million in savings in 2024, with copilots supporting more than 40% of contact-center interactions.

Botín told CNBC in October 2025 that AI is now everywhere in the bank, and by February 2026 was targeting more than €1 billion in AI-driven business value as part of the efficiency goals in her strategic plan — with agentic AI and fully conversational banking on the roadmap to 2027. She frames the push as building “a global financial services platform, leveraging a decade of investment in technology and AI.”

European banking unions have watched the efficiency drive warily, since “structurally lower costs” in banking has historically meant fewer branch jobs. Botín’s wager is that retraining every employee, rather than just the technologists, is what separates AI transformation from AI attrition.