Zopa launches AI Ask tool for Biscuit account users

Zopa has launched Ask, an artificial intelligence tool for customers of its Biscuit account that lets users carry out banking tasks through natural-language prompts.

Designed as an always-on digital banker inside the app, the feature allows customers to send money, request payments, split bills from a receipt image and pay invoices by uploading a photo.

Users can also ask it to check balances, manage cards, review statements, update account details and create savings pots. Ask can also help customers set savings goals, create budgets and receive spending-limit warnings, such as alerts when takeaway spending approaches a set threshold.

The launch reflects a broader push by banks to move digital banking away from app navigation and towards conversational interfaces. Rather than working through menus and forms, customers can describe what they want to do in everyday language.

AI strategy

Zopa said Ask is built on its own AI platform and what it described as an agentic architecture, designed to let the system interpret customer intent and carry out actions rather than simply answer questions. The bank presented the launch as part of a wider effort to build what it called an AI-native bank.

That distinction matters in a market where many lenders have added chat assistants to existing apps without changing the underlying systems. Zopa said its approach includes investment in financial insights, data enrichment and analytical tools so AI can be used across daily banking, money management and customer service.

The bank also shared early performance figures for its use of AI across the business. Customers who interact with AI report satisfaction scores 10% higher, while AI now resolves 65% of customer service queries.

Those figures suggest Zopa is using automation not only as a customer-facing feature but also as an operational tool. Employees use generative AI to improve productivity, while AI-based training tools support onboarding and skills development.

Growth backdrop

The launch comes as Zopa expands beyond its origins in peer-to-peer lending into a broader digital banking model. Biscuit, the current account behind the new feature, has been positioned as a more flexible product offering interest, cashback and access to savings options.

Zopa said it now serves more than 2 million customers. It also reported pre-tax profit of £65 million in 2025, marking its third consecutive year of profitability.

Profitability gives the bank more room to invest in product development as competition among UK digital banks and incumbents intensifies. Conversational banking is emerging as a new battleground, particularly as advances in generative AI raise customer expectations around speed and ease of use.

For consumers, the key test will be whether such tools can reliably complete regulated financial tasks without adding friction or confusion. Banks have long tried to simplify digital journeys, but money management still often requires customers to move between multiple screens and complete structured workflows.

Ask is intended to reduce that complexity by letting customers make requests more directly. Zopa's examples include telling the app to pay a friend, open a savings pot for a holiday or help save £150 by the end of the year.

The bank argued that the bigger opportunity lies in helping people make better use of their money, rather than simply adding more app features. It is using that argument to position AI as part of a shift from a transactional banking app to a more active financial assistant.

Zopa was also named the UK's Best App for 2026 at the British Bank Awards, according to the company. The bank said AI is helping it move "from banking app to financial partner".