Revolut launches AI unit as proclaims virtues of proprietary AI

Revolut launched a dedicated AI research division on August 25, called Revolut Research, along with a proprietary AI foundation model named PRAGMA built in partnership with Nvidia, per Tech.eu.

Revolut Research will serve as the centre of Revolut's proprietary AI and machine learning activities, according to Tech.eu. The unit will also work with leading academic and technology institutions on AI development across financial services. The launch formalises what the company calls a "build, don't bolt on" philosophy — a deliberate move away from third-party AI tools toward in-house model development.

PRAGMA is designed as a single AI foundation for finance rather than a collection of separate models for different functions. Revolut claims it "learns patterns across the entire customer journey" to support fraud detection, credit decisions, product recommendations, and customer service from one unified model — a contrast to how the company says most financial services firms currently operate, by deploying off-the-shelf tools and building siloed models per use case. Early testing results cited by Tech.eu include 65 more fraud cases caught, 2.3x higher accuracy in identifying credit default risk, and 41% more product recommendations, though Revolut does not specify the baseline or testing period for these figures.

The company argues its competitive edge in AI stems from data scale. With 80 million customers generating billions of cross-border transactions, Revolut contends its datasets give PRAGMA a self-reinforcing advantage: as the customer base grows, the models improve at fraud detection, risk evaluation, and predicting user needs. "Creating a proprietary intelligence advantage that traditionally structured banks struggle to match," the company said, as reported by Tech.eu.

Pavel Nesterov, head of AI at Revolut, framed the division's launch as a structural commitment to that approach. "To lead the future of intelligent banking, you cannot rely on third-party blueprints," Nesterov told Tech.eu. "By training native foundation models on our global operational data, we are giving our engineering teams an unprecedented engine to deploy smarter features faster, eliminate systemic friction, and give our customers a safer, radically better financial experience."

No funding figures, headcount targets, or specific product release timelines were disclosed alongside the launch. The sources available do not detail which academic or technology institutions Revolut Research will partner with beyond the mention of Nvidia as the co-developer of PRAGMA.