LHV Bank Launches AI Pilot With Gradient Labs

The Estonian retail LHV Bank is testing AI-assisted email support in a controlled environment, with human oversight mandatory throughout.

LHV Bank and Gradient Labs announced a proof-of-concept partnership on March 30 to evaluate agentic AI systems for handling retail customer email inquiries. The initiative will test whether AI capable of planning, reasoning, and executing actions within defined workflows can improve response quality and reduce turnaround times without removing human judgment from the process.

The proof of concept is exploratory. LHV Bank confirmed that no fully automated decision-making for retail customers will occur during the trial. All outputs will remain subject to human review, with the collaboration structured around explainability, auditability, and alignment with LHV’s existing regulatory and governance requirements. 

Customer support is a critical touchpoint for retail banking, and the potential use of agentic AI in this area is an exciting opportunity to enhance our service offering. This proof of concept allows us to explore how agentic AI could support our teams with email-based customer enquiries, while keeping human judgment and customer protection firmly in place.
Kris Brewster, interim CEO of LHV Bank.

Gradient Labs specializes in AI support platforms built for sensitive customer operations in financial services. The London-based company focuses on voice, text, and email-based AI tools designed for heavily regulated environments. Dimitri Masin, CEO of Gradient Labs, said the collaboration addresses a core challenge in retail banking.

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The move comes as financial institutions across Europe step up efforts to automate routine customer interactions while remaining within the bounds of consumer protection frameworks. Lloyds Banking Group separately announced this week a research program with the University of Glasgow to study agentic AI applications in software and data engineering, signaling broader momentum across the sector.

LHV Bank is Estonia’s largest domestically owned bank and operates a retail banking arm in the United Kingdom. The institution has expanded its UK presence steadily in recent years, building a customer base alongside its established Baltic operations. It’s unclear at this stage how insights from the proof of concept will be applied differently across its two primary markets, given differing regulatory environments.

Specific timelines for the trial and the volume of customer interactions involved were not disclosed. LHV Bank said the initiative’s findings will inform its internal frameworks for deploying advanced AI in customer support going forward.

Disclaimer: This report is based on publicly available reports, including reporting from MENA Fintech. Nervnow has not independently verified any claims.

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