Barclays Expects Half Its Developers to Use Claude Code by the End of 2026
Anthropic says the UK bank is broadening its use of Claude, which already powers an internal knowledge assistant for staff and helps process roughly 120,000 client inquiry emails a day.
Anthropic announced on October 1 (local time) that UK bank Barclays is expanding its use of Claude. Barclays is using Claude to speed up software development across its global businesses and to overhaul aging systems. The bank expects that by the end of 2026, 50% of its developers will be using Claude Code, the tool that assists with coding work. By 2027, it projects that a majority of its software engineers will be using it.
What developers are using it for
Barclays says its goal is to improve technology work across the board. Craig Bright, Group Co-Chief Operating Officer, explained that the bank is using Claude to modernize existing platforms and raise software quality. The idea is that once AI is embedded in the process of building, testing, security-checking, and running technology, technical specialists can focus on more complex problems.
Cutting down on repetitive work is another reason for the rollout. Anne Marie Darling, Group Co-Chief Operating Officer, said the bank wants to reduce the time spent on routine tasks and streamline decision-making, so that employee expertise can be directed where it is needed most. The aims are a better customer experience and a more efficient organization.
What changes for customer service
One deployment is already live: the Colleague Knowledge Assistant, an internal information-retrieval tool for staff. Since 2025, employees in the UK division have been using it while serving more than 20 million retail customers. The tool helps staff find the information they need faster and respond more quickly. According to Anthropic, more than 16,000 employees now use it, and cumulative searches have passed 1 million.
The assistant works by having Claude answer questions with reference to the material it retrieves. It is a tool for the employees serving customers, not for customers themselves. Anthropic said that as staff spend less time hunting for information, customer support has also become faster.
120,000 emails a day: how far does the AI go?
In Barclays’ global markets business, Claude is used to process client inquiry emails. That means sorting inquiries by type, enriching their content, and deciding how each one should be routed. It prioritizes requests and attaches the information needed so that the responsible staff member can act immediately. The platform handles roughly 120,000 emails a day.
Anthropic said this approach reduces manual work for employees and speeds up response times. Barclays explained that when it applies AI to its operations, it pairs the technology with governance processes, security controls, and human oversight.
The heart of this announcement is the expansion of Claude from information retrieval and email processing into software development work more broadly. Barclays has laid out a goal of cutting repetitive tasks so that staff can spend more time on complex problems and customer support. The things to watch from here are whether developer adoption climbs as planned, and whether customer response times and software quality actually improve.