LHV: 1,000 Employees Use AI Solutions Every Day

LHV is one of the first major Estonian companies to start implementing AI tools early on. The bank's founder Rain Lõhmus discovered ChatGPT in December 2022, just a few weeks after its public launch, and says that after that, life was never the same for him or the bank.

"I remember starting to tell people: listen, life is no longer the same," says Lõhmus. "The implementation took time, of course. We signed our first contract at the end of 2023. The start was slow, but development has accelerated so much recently that not much has really been lost." He says they did not compare themselves with other Estonian companies: "When making the case, I often pointed out that Klarna, for example, was six months ahead of us. That really made people think."

A culture of experimentation, not bans

"If I'm being completely honest, I don't know in detail which specific tools we're currently using, and maybe that's not the most important thing," says Lõhmus. "We encourage diversity and allow experimentation. Banning doesn't help; people will just do it somewhere else anyway. What matters is the attitude: do you encourage usage or only talk about caution and the fear of things going wrong? Besides, AI is already sneaking into existing tools. You use 'regular' software, but a model is working in the background. That's why the specific tool choice is less decisive than having the right mindset, somewhat like raising a child: do you give freedom or over-restrict?"

According to LHV's AI development lead Martti Praks, AI has now become a daily assistant for more than three-quarters of the bank's employees. "Nearly 1,000 employees use ChatGPT Enterprise or other AI solutions daily to boost their work efficiency. AI licenses are available to everyone who finds that artificial intelligence helps make their tasks and workflow easier," he says.

In addition to ChatGPT, LHV also uses solutions that work as API-based interfaces between programs. "We're also experimenting with Google's Gemini tools ecosystem," adds Praks.

LHV AI development lead Martti Praks. Photo: LHV

According to Lõhmus, employee attitudes are like those of parents. "Some are cautious, others see opportunities. On Slack, I see how some share videos about what can go wrong, while others discuss what to do next and how. Experimentation is happening and tools are being used," says Lõhmus.

He admits that LHV's pace could be faster. "One reason we've been conservative: 2025 is LHV's cloud migration year. The old architecture, servers and disks, made integration complex. I hope that by the end of 2025, we'll smash the last disks and be fully in the cloud," he says.

Virtual assistants and RAG technologies

LHV uses AI both to simplify internal work processes and to develop customer interactions. For example, they have created a system where AI helps decide which team or specialist to route new tasks or issues to.

"This reduces manual work and mimics a human decision-making process, making workflows faster and smoother," explains Praks.

One of the main applications involves complex regulations and contract terms. "We've built a virtual assistant based on RAG technology (Retrieval Augmented Generation) that helps employees quickly understand long and complex documents such as regulations, service terms, or insurance contracts. For instance, if a customer wants to buy LHV insurance and is communicating with an LHV service agent, the agent can use the virtual assistant during the process to provide better answers to the customer," describes Praks.

AI also helps customer service agents draft emails. "AI doesn't send responses on its own but creates a draft that is already consistent with our brand language and terminology," he adds.

AI in marketing and development

AI has also reached LHV's marketing department. "We tested generative AI tools to create social media campaign videos. While such production would previously have required a larger team, bigger budget, and more time, with the help of AI the video was completed by a smaller team significantly faster," says Praks.

Lõhmus smiles: "I was surprised too. I realized it was made with AI, but I didn't expect that two marketing employees made it themselves."

Development teams also use several AI tools that, under certain conditions, can access LHV's codebase. "This helps speed up development work, while maintaining a strong focus on security," explains Praks.

"For us, it is crucial to ensure that customer data or other sensitive information doesn't end up in the wrong hands. As a bank, one of the main constraints on AI usage is how to keep tools secure and ensure data protection. We weigh the security aspect for every tool," emphasizes Praks. "We maintain a balance between innovation and security."

According to him, the other major challenge is varying levels of employee readiness. "Although the tools are convenient, many people need guidance and support to integrate them into their work. For this, we've created training programs, guides, we organize events where we share best practices, and we have people you can turn to for more complex cases," he says.

Next step: smarter bots

According to Praks, development is increasingly moving toward the next generation of virtual assistants, or bots, which are significantly more intelligent than earlier chatbots. "In the future, these could offer customers personalized advice both in text and voice, for example when explaining investment transactions or insurance options. It's important to make bots useful for customers, not annoying. Our goal is to provide value and convenience," says Praks.

Both Lõhmus and Praks emphasize that the question is no longer whether to use AI, but how to use it. "Companies that ignore AI will simply fall behind," says Praks. "What matters is thinking about how to make technology useful in your field and get the maximum out of it, both in internal processes and in services and products."

Story authored by AI Eesti co-founder Ralf-Stiven Viru