Lloyds Banking Group claims Microsoft Copilot saves staff 46 minutes a day

That's 46 minutes in which more work can be done, not an extended lunch

Lloyds Banking Group claims employees save 46 minutes daily using Microsoft 365 Copilot, based on a survey of 1,000 users among nearly 30,000 deployed licenses.

According to Lloyds Banking Group (LBG), the rollout is "helping teams summarize documents, prepare for meetings, and reduce administrative tasks." Almost 5,000 engineers are also using GitHub Copilot.

Vic Weigler, chief technology officer at the finance corp, said in a statement: "We converted 11,000 lines of code across 83 files in half the expected time."

An insider at the bank, a self-professed fan of the technology, listed some of the ways it was being used in their business area. These ranged from the mundane – drafting and summarizing emails, transcribing meetings, and comparing documents to group standards – to the eyebrow-raising, such as drafting legal clauses, undertaking due diligence, and creating complex Excel formulas.

They told us the next step is creating bots and agents to perform repetitive data-based tasks and rolling out the technology to customer-facing processes.

That said, they also noted the AI tools occasionally make mistakes. The "golden rule," is to "never use the output without checking it."

Good advice give how quickly LBG is pushing out AI tooling. In a March statement, the group said: "The integration of AI into financial services is not just about adopting new technology; it's about reimagining the entire banking experience."

Ranil Boteju, chief data and analytics officer at Lloyds Banking Group, said in a statement today: "We quickly identified the transformative impact that AI could deliver across our organisation, and over the last few years have put in place the assurance frameworks and tools we need to deploy AI safely and at scale.

"With these foundations in place, we're reimagining how we operate by embedding AI across our business to drive smarter decisions, faster outcomes and better experiences. Our colleagues have embraced tools like M365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot, giving them more time to focus on what matters most – delivering exceptional service for our customers."

Another use for that extra time might be scanning the vacancy ads. Earlier this year, LBG announced a review of technology and engineering professionals working in the UK, and a few weeks ago the group said it would continue to use "digitization" as it closed branches.

In a prepared remark, Microsoft UK CEO Darren Hardman called LBG's approach to AI "pioneering."

The software and cloud biz signed a 100,000 license contract with Barclays earlier this year, according to a well-timed leak that landed weeks before the close of Microsoft's fiscal 2025.

Microsoft could certainly use Copilot wins to calm the nerves of investors that are twitchy about the $80 billion the corporation is investing in AI datacenter infrastructure in 2025. Microsoft has yet to make public the number of licenses for Copilot it has sold globally, and some customers seem unconvinced about AI.

A three-month trial by the UK government of Microsoft 365 Copilot did not find any clear increase in productivity. And at a recent conference, the head of Microsoft's Modern Work and Business Applications division, Jared Spataro, admitted that "it is hard to make the ROI argument for it."

The saving of 46 minutes per each Copilot-using employee at LBG is strangely specific.

Earlier this year, the UK's Government Digital Service (GDS) claimed an average of 26 minutes per day saved in office tasks thanks to generative AI assistance.

Like the GDS claim, LBG has not detailed how those extra 46 minutes are used. It is unlikely to be an extended lunch or added up for extra vacation time. A source at the group told The Register that the time saving allowed them to "simply crack through a lot more work per week." ®