LHV Bank, a digital-only lender, has deployed an agentic AI system from Gradient Labs to handle customer email support in the UK, providing round-the-clock responses to routine banking queries.

The launch follows a proof of concept announced by the two companies earlier this year. The AI agent can now resolve everyday customer requests from start to finish, including reporting a missing card, clarifying payments, answering questions about transfers and providing updates on existing enquiries. Cases involving sensitive issues, complex requests or actions outside its approved procedures are escalated to human support staff.

Previously, LHV handled customer emails through a shared queue, meaning straightforward enquiries and more complicated cases entered the same process. The new system is designed to resolve routine requests immediately, allowing employees to focus on cases that require human judgement.

The agent operates within defined customer journeys and approved procedures, tools and controls. LHV’s teams design the workflows, establish the limits of the system and determine which actions it can perform. Every update is tested and approved by the bank before release, while teams continue to monitor service quality and review escalated cases.

To support its use in a regulated banking environment, the system combines large language models with deterministic guardrails. These controls restrict the data and tools available to the agent, define when it must stop or escalate a request, and determine how complaints and vulnerable customers are handled.

LHV said customer information is not used to train the models or build the agent. Instead, the system accesses relevant customer data only during live interactions.

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