Barclays expands Claude across banking operations

Barclays is expanding its strategic collaboration with Anthropic and rolling Claude deeper into the bank’s global operations.

Anthropic says Barclays will use Claude to speed up software development, modernize legacy systems and improve operational efficiency. The bank expects Claude Code adoption to reach 50% of its developer population by the end of 2026, then a majority of software engineers in 2027.

The rollout is not limited to coding. Barclays’ Colleague Knowledge Assistant, powered by Claude through retrieval-augmented generation, is already used by more than 16,000 employees supporting over 20 million UK retail customers. Anthropic says the assistant has handled more than one million searches.

Claude is also being used inside Barclays’ Global Markets business to classify, enrich and route incoming client emails. Anthropic says the system processes about 120,000 emails each day, reducing manual handling and helping operations teams prioritize work.

The story matters because it is a concrete example of frontier AI moving from pilots into regulated financial infrastructure. Barclays is framing the expansion around security, governance and human oversight, while Anthropic gets a high-profile proof point that Claude can run in large enterprise workflows, not just chat and coding demos.