15 million chats per year: Lessons in AI-driven customer conversations from Lloyds Banking Group with Cainan Wright and John Young

Once switched off during busy periods, Lloyds Banking Group’s
chatbot now handles more than 15 million conversations a year.
Learn what it really takes to build AI solutions that customers
trust with their money. 


We sit down with Cainan Wright, Senior Product Owner, and John
Young, AI Lead - Chatbots and Generative AI, from Lloyds Banking
Group, to explore their remarkable nine-year journey in building
one of the UK's most successful banking chatbots. From handling 3
million conversations in 2021 to over 15 million in 2025, they
share the hard-earned lessons of transforming a rather "unloved"
virtual assistant into a mission-critical service for almost 27
million customers.


We cover how the team stabilised their service by focusing on the
basics, investing in design expertise, and securing
organisational buy-in through demonstrating clear value.


Cainan and John also share valuable insights into their pragmatic
approach to generative AI, explaining how they combine
deterministic processes with generative language capabilities to
deliver the best customer experience while maintaining brand
consistency and ensuring regulatory compliance.


The team's journey offers important lessons about perseverance
and the importance of striking a balance between innovation and
responsibility when deploying AI in a highly regulated industry.



Timestamps

00:00 – Intro


01:34 – Meet Lloyds Banking Group


03:18 – The unloved virtual assistant era


05:30 – AI before ChatGPT


06:50 – Stabilising the service and earning trust


14:23 – From underloved to mission critical


16:55 – Buy-in from stakeholders to scale AI capabilities


18:41 – Defining new AI roles in banking


20:51 – Scaling from 3 to 15 million conversations


25:15 – How to handle a 5x increase in three years


27:43 – Experiments with generative AI in banking


30:24 – Using an LLM classifier


31:07 – Improving tools within teams


32:45 – Using generative AI for value and impact


34:56 – Valuable design research sessions


38:56 – Meeting customer expectations with generative AI


46:04 – Maintaining consistency in probabilistic landscape


49:30 – The right tool for the right job in conversational AI


55:26 – How do you measure the impact of generative AI?


56:13 – Responsible AI and proving business value


1:01:10 – The next 12 months


1:07:02 – Magic wand moments


1:11:34 – If the team could start over again


1:14:03 – Closing remarks from Kane



Show notes




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