The Vision of Invisible Technology
Itaú Unibanco, a titan in the Brazilian financial sector, is embarking on a massive digital transformation aimed at simplifying the complex world of personal finance. Rather than pushing technology as a spectacle, the bank is focusing on an AI-first philosophy that prioritizes simplicity and direct utility. Carlos Eduardo Mazzei, CTO of Itaú, emphasizes that the ultimate goal is to make the technology feel seamless, ensuring that the tool itself fades into the background while the financial benefit remains front and center for the user.
This initiative responds to a clear consumer demand. Data from the bank indicates that a vast majority of Brazilians are actively seeking better ways to organize their financial lives and desire a digital copilot to help navigate monetary decisions. To meet this need, the bank has transitioned from basic automated tools to sophisticated, generative AI-driven experiences that span the entire customer lifecycle.
ia.i: A Unified Conversational Gateway
The core of the customer-facing experience is ia.i, a comprehensive conversational layer that allows users to interact with the bank through text or voice. Designed as a one-stop-shop, ia.i integrates checking account management, credit services, card operations, and insurance into a single, intuitive interface. This platform represents a shift from mere convenience to active financial advice, leveraging multiple models to handle tasks ranging from high-speed, cost-effective responses to complex, logic-heavy financial planning.
The system is underpinned by "Customer DNA," a contextual layer that synthesizes habits and life stages for roughly 70 million customers. By utilizing advanced models, the bank ensures that every interaction is personalized. The rollout is moving in stages, with an initial group of 300,000 customers already interacting with the system. Itaú plans to scale this to its entire customer base by the end of 2026, with upcoming features set to include deeper financial analytics and complex product simulations.
IARA: Scaling Governance in a Regulated Environment
Operating generative AI in a highly regulated banking sector requires more than just raw power; it necessitates rigorous control. To achieve this, Itaú developed IARA, a proprietary governance and orchestration platform. IARA serves as the central hub through which all AI models are accessed, ensuring that the bank maintains observability, cost management per token, and strict adherence to responsible AI policies.
The platform’s impact is perhaps most visible in the bank’s legal department, where it acts as a force multiplier. By processing a repository of over 90 million documents and executing more than 2 million tasks every month, IARA has driven efficiency gains ranging from 20% to 80% in various legal processes. This centralized control allows the bank to innovate rapidly while ensuring that every automated response is safe, transparent, and aligned with the bank’s internal values and cultural standards.
Internal Efficiency and The Future of Work
Itaú’s AI strategy is not solely focused on the end user; it is fundamentally altering how internal teams operate. By deploying the same intelligence layer that powers ia.i to its staff, the bank is automating routine tasks—such as meeting preparation, summarizing complex issues, and drafting financial alternatives—that previously consumed valuable time. These internal efficiencies are expected to make service delivery up to twice as fast and significantly increase the quality of time relationship managers spend with their clients. By removing the friction of manual data synthesis, Itaú is positioning its human workforce to focus on the high-value, interpersonal aspects of banking that remain central to the institution's success.
