Barclays expands Claude rollout across the bank
Barclays is expanding its use of Anthropic's Claude across the bank and expects most of its software engineers to be using Claude Code by 2027, showing how quickly AI coding tools are spreading through regulated finance.
Barclays is extending its strategic collaboration with Anthropic. The bank plans to use Claude for software development, legacy-system modernization and operational efficiency. It expects Claude Code to reach 50% of its developers by the end of 2026 and a majority of its software engineers in 2027.
The announcement, which Anthropic published as a customer story, names two deployments that are already running:
- Colleague Knowledge Assistant: A retrieval-augmented generation tool built on Claude and live since 2025. Barclays UK staff use it to answer questions while serving more than 20 million UK retail customers. More than 16,000 colleagues have adopted it, and it has handled over one million searches.
- Global Markets email processing: Claude models classify and enrich incoming client emails, then route them to the right place. The system checks that requests contain the information operations staff need. It handles about 120,000 emails a day and reduces manual handling.
Craig Bright, one of Barclays' Group Co-Chief Operating Officers, said the bank is moving toward "AI as an increasingly agentic capability embedded within how we build, test, secure and operate technology." That includes using Claude to modernize legacy platforms. Paul Smith, Anthropic's Chief Commercial Officer, called the deal "a significant milestone for us in the UK."
Barclays says it applies governance, security controls and human oversight to its AI use cases. The announcement does not give financial terms, the size of Barclays' developer workforce, or any measured productivity or cost results beyond the usage figures.