Barclays Expands Use of Anthropic’s Claude Across Its Global Operations

Barclays is expanding its use of artificial intelligence across the bank as it works with Anthropic to improve software development, modernize older technology systems and make some customer and internal processes more efficient.

The British banking group plans to extend the use of Anthropic’s Claude AI across different parts of its global operations. The bank also expects Claude Code to be used by around 50% of its developers by the end of 2026, with adoption expected to reach a majority of its software engineers in 2027.

The move comes as financial institutions increasingly explore how AI can be used while meeting strict security, regulatory and governance requirements.

Summary

Barclays is expanding its strategic collaboration with Anthropic to bring Claude into more areas of the bank.

The technology is already being used for tasks such as helping employees find information and processing large volumes of emails. Barclays now plans to expand its use of Claude for software development, legacy-system modernization and other operational activities.

The bank says human oversight, security controls and governance will remain important as the technology is deployed.

What Happened?

Barclays has announced an expanded collaboration with Anthropic to scale the use of Claude across its organization.

One of the major areas of focus is software engineering. Barclays expects Claude Code adoption to reach approximately half of its developer workforce by the end of 2026.

The bank expects the technology to reach a majority of its software engineers during 2027.

Claude is also being used in customer support and operational workflows, where Barclays says AI can help employees find information and process requests more efficiently.

AI Assistant Helps Barclays Employees Support Customers

One of the existing applications is Barclays’ Colleague Knowledge Assistant, which helps employees find information when assisting customers.

The system has been available since 2025 and uses Claude with a retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG, architecture.

More than 16,000 Barclays employees have used the assistant, and the system has processed more than one million searches, according to the bank.

For customer-facing employees, having faster access to internal information could reduce the time needed to find answers and potentially help them respond to customers more quickly.

The system is particularly relevant to Barclays UK, which serves more than 20 million retail customers.

Claude Is Also Processing Large Numbers of Emails

Barclays is using Claude in another area of its business to help manage incoming email requests.

Within the bank’s Global Markets business, AI models are being used to classify and enrich incoming emails and determine how requests should be processed.

The system handles approximately 120,000 emails each day.

Instead of requiring employees to manually review and organize every message, AI can help identify relevant information and route requests to the appropriate operational teams.

This allows employees to spend more time on requests that require human judgment.

AI Could Help Modernize Older Banking Systems

Another major focus of Barclays’ expanded AI strategy is software development.

Large financial institutions often operate complex technology environments that include systems built over many years. Updating or maintaining these legacy platforms can require significant engineering time.

Barclays plans to use Claude to assist engineers with software development and the modernization of older systems.

The bank also sees AI becoming increasingly involved in areas such as software testing, cybersecurity and technology operations.

Rather than replacing its technical teams, Barclays says AI will allow engineers and cybersecurity specialists to focus more heavily on complicated problems.

Why It Matters

Banks handle sensitive financial and personal information, which makes the use of AI more complicated than it is in many other industries.

Any AI system used inside a bank needs to operate within strict security and governance requirements.

For Barclays, expanding Claude across its operations therefore involves more than simply giving employees access to an AI chatbot.

The bank says it is using security controls, governance processes and human oversight as it expands AI adoption.

This approach could become increasingly important as other financial institutions look to introduce AI into their own operations.

Barclays’ Growing AI Workforce

The planned expansion of Claude Code is particularly significant for software development.

If Barclays reaches its target of having Claude Code used by half of its developers by the end of 2026 and by a majority of software engineers in 2027, AI could become a regular part of the bank’s software development process.

Developers could use AI assistance for tasks such as writing and reviewing code, understanding existing systems and working on software modernization.

However, the final responsibility for software quality, security and deployment remains with the bank’s engineering teams.

What Comes Next?

Barclays plans to continue expanding its use of Claude across different business functions.

The bank’s focus will be on finding practical applications where AI can improve productivity, simplify processes and help employees work more effectively.

For Anthropic, the Barclays partnership also represents an important enterprise deployment, particularly because banks operate under strict regulatory and security requirements.

As financial institutions increase their AI investments, partnerships like this could provide an indication of how generative AI is moving from experimental projects into everyday business operations.

Conclusion

Barclays is expanding its use of Anthropic’s Claude from individual AI applications to a broader deployment across its global operations.

The technology is already helping employees search for information and process large volumes of emails, while the bank plans to use Claude more extensively in software development and legacy-system modernization.

The expansion also highlights a broader trend in banking: AI adoption is moving beyond customer chatbots and into internal operations, engineering and decision-making workflows.

For Barclays, the challenge will be balancing the potential productivity gains from AI with the security, regulatory controls and human oversight required in the financial sector.