Starling Bank has launched Starling Assistant, an in-app agentic AI financial assistant described as one of the first of its kind in the UK.
The tool has been rolled out to personal current account holders from 20 March 2026, with business and joint account support to follow. The assistant is built using Google Gemini, running on the Google Cloud platform.
Starling Assistant offers a conversational banking interface that responds to voice and natural language prompts and can carry out banking tasks on the customer's behalf. These include setting up savings goals with automatic transfers, organising bill payments, creating budget allocations across dedicated spending spaces, and providing detailed transaction history analysis.
Furthermore, the assistant can generate personalised financial quizzes, provide guidance on account features, and offer specialist support for customers with vulnerability or accessibility needs, including help setting up sign language services, gambling blocks, and financial distress guidance.
Technology foundation and privacy approach
The launch builds on eight years of AI development at Starling, including two UK-first generative AI tools released last year, including Spending Intelligence, which allows natural language queries about spending habits, and Scam Intelligence, which helps detect online marketplace scams. Both are accessible through Starling Assistant, consolidating the bank's AI capabilities into a single interface.
Starling has stated that use of the assistant is opt-in, with all data remaining within its Google Cloud environment and not used for training purposes.
The assistant's agentic capability, the ability to take actions rather than simply respond to queries, represents a step beyond the conversational AI tools most UK banks have deployed to date. Rather than returning information for the user to act on, Starling Assistant executes tasks directly within the account, including setting up recurring transfers and configuring spending spaces based on verbal instructions.
Talking about the launch, Harriet Rees, Group Chief Information Officer at Starling, said the move marks a substantial development for banking powered by agentic AI, with the bank intending to continue feeding additional AI capabilities into the single interface. On a similar note, Raman Bhatia, Group CEO of Starling, described agentic AI as the next step in banking.
