Selected Santander AI Tests Cut Cost per Interaction From €5 to €0.03

Santander’s AI lab built Model Arena with Nvidia to evaluate open-source AI models on banking tasks. The platform is intended to help match models to different types of work, while Santander also used Nvidia’s NeMo Customizer to adapt models for banking needs.

In selected experiments, replacing large, general-purpose models with smaller systems tailored to specific tasks cut the cost of one interaction from €5 to €0.03. Performance was maintained in those tests. In an experimental customer-service case, a more efficient model improved conversation quality and reduced costs by more than 50%.

The companies plan to continue working on foundation models, AI agents, fraud detection and anti-money-laundering systems, real-time decisions and banking digital twins.