Lloyds Banking Group is recruiting 300 technology specialists to work on artificial intelligence initiatives by September, as the lender prepares to unveil a new strategic plan next month and expands its use of autonomous AI systems across the business.

The recruitment campaign was announced weeks before chief executive Charlie Nunn is due to present a new multi-year strategy for the bank, which is concluding a five-year programme focused on digital banking, branch consolidation, pensions and wealth management. The new hires will join a 1,000-strong AI team comprising both external recruits and retrained employees.

According to Lloyds – which revealed the news to The Guardian – the recruits will focus on developing and deploying agentic AI, a form of artificial intelligence capable of planning and carrying out tasks with limited human oversight. The bank said the technology would be used across a range of functions, including fraud prevention, scam detection and internal document management.

Trystan Davies, group head of data and AI science at Lloyds, told the paper: “AI will reshape how organisations are structured. It will change roles and how we work, and we are investing in training for colleagues through that transition.”

The hiring push comes as major banks increase investment in AI to improve efficiency and reduce costs. Lloyds has previously acknowledged that wider adoption of the technology could affect staffing levels. In January, Nunn said the bank would have to “reduce some jobs in some areas” as AI becomes more widely embedded in operations.

Davies said one of the programme’s priorities is improving customer-facing services, including making digital banking more personalised and accessible. He said customers could eventually use plain-language queries to analyse spending habits and compare financial products. “It results in a much better customer experience because our systems are kind of geared up in the right way,” he said.

The new specialists will work with existing large language models, including Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Gemini, while tailoring applications to Lloyds’ requirements. The bank said its generative AI programme contributed £50 million to its balance sheet in 2025 and is expected to deliver £100 million this year as the use of agentic AI expands.

Lloyds is expanding AI capability beyond external recruitment. The bank launched an AI Academy in January to provide training for all 67,000 employees, while pursuing a target of full AI literacy across its workforce by the end of 2026. The lender has said the programme is intended to support wider adoption of generative and agentic AI technologies throughout the organisation.

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