United KingdomFinance and insurance2024 – ongoing

NatWest Group

Cora+ generative AI virtual agent on watsonx Assistant

NatWest upgrades its Cora chatbot with IBM watsonx; satisfaction on some answers up to 150%

WorkingVendor's case studyVendor ↗

Problem

NatWest's Cora assistant, launched in 2017, handled a high volume of customer questions. The bank wanted it to answer natural-language questions directly.

Approach

In 2024 the bank built Cora+ on IBM watsonx Assistant with retrieval-augmented generation, and IBM Client Engineering produced a proof of concept. Cora+ also summarizes chats for human agents, and governance guardrails address accuracy.

Results

up to 150%improvement in customer satisfaction on some of the questions Cora+ answersVendor's case study[1]

nearly 11 millionfinancial-management customer inquiries handled by the support channel in the past yearVendor's case study[1]

Takeaway

A planned 12-week experiment was extended into production. NatWest reported a satisfaction gain of up to 150% on some questions only.

Sources

NatWest case study
IBM2024Vendor publication

Source summaries

[1]IBM2024

IBM describes how NatWest rebuilt its Cora assistant as Cora+ on watsonx Assistant using retrieval-augmented generation. It reports inquiry volume and a satisfaction gain on some answers.

Full details are in the original sources.

Added 25 Oct 2026 · Updated 25 Oct 2026