John Lewis has slashed the price of Le Creuset by 40% in summer sale including popular casserole pot and oven dishes
John Lewis slash prices in summer sale
The popular retailer has commenced its summer sale with top brands being heavily discounted.
The sale has seen John Lewis slash the prices of several beloved Le Creuset products.
Shoppers to save 40% on popular dish set
Among the products on offer, is its popular stoneware oven dish, which has seen a whopping 40 per cent knocked off the original price.
The iconic dish is available for just £37.80 in a range of colours, including Le Creuset's cult orange shade.
With the retail price normally being an eye-watering £63 for a set of two dishes, shoppers can make a huge saving on the cookware.
The product description reads: "Part of Le Creuset's enduringly popular stoneware range, this pair of square oven dishes nest together to save storage space.
"Try them for pasta bakes, roasted vegetables, gratin and pies and for oven-to-table serving of a main and side presented in matching colours."
The description also highlighted that the dishes are durable, easy to clean, and oven, microwave, freezer and dishwasher friendly.
The product has also received glowing reviews from happy customers.
One wrote: "Aesthetically pleasing, lightweight and most importantly, durable, which essentially ticks off everything you could look for in an oven dish.
"These dishes are fantastic."
I bought a £1 IKEA 'oven tray' but it MELTED when I cooked on it - loads of people have made the same mistake
Big-name brands featured in the John Lewis sale
Another Le Creuset item that is up for grabs is their staple Casserole Soup Pot.
The beloved pot is currently reduced to £129 from £215 and available in three of the brand's iconic colours.
Described as "a great way to start your Le Creuset collection" now is an amazing time to get your hands on this kitchen staple.
Other big names in the John Lewis sale include Nespresso, LSA and Joseph Joseph.
This isn't the first time John Lewis has heavily discounted Le Creuset kitchen staples.
Its boxing day sale saw shoppers save up to £100 on an array of iconic products.
These sales offer a great opportunity for keen cooks to snap up quality products without the hefty price tag.
Argos has also recently launched its summer sale - offering huge discounts across thousands of products.
The retail giant's summer deals feature savings of up to 50 per cent and has brought welcome discounts during the peak barbecue and outdoor entertaining season.
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Klarna (2024) AI Application: Customer support and shopping assistance Experience Impacted: CX - Banking Customer Experience Generative AI Customer Service and Shopping Assistant: The Swedish fintech Klarna (BNPL and shopping platform) deployed a gen AI assistant that, by early 2024, was handling two-thirds of all customer service chats for its 150 million users. Built on OpenAI's tech, this chatbot can manage multilingual customer inquiries about refunds, returns and orders, effectively doing the work of 700 full-time support agents. It also powers a conversational shopping feature (a ChatGPT plugin) that offers product recommendations. Impact: Within one month of launch, Klarna's AI assistant had 2.3 million conversations and achieved customer satisfaction on par with human agents. It resolved issues so efficiently that repeat inquiries dropped 25%, and average resolution time fell from 11 minutes to under 2 minutes. 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Now, with conversation mode, it delivers personalized, context-rich answers much faster (twice the speed of before). It's also helping bunq's operations: Finn now fully resolves 40% of user support queries and assists in an additional 35% of all queries daily without human intervention. This means that 75% of bunq users get instant help for many issues, improving service experience, while the bank scales support efficiently as its user base (17 million across the EU and growing) expands. 16. Lunar (2024) AI Application: Voice banking assistant Experience Impacted: UX - Banking User Experience GenAI Voice Banking Assistant: The Danish fintech Lunar launched Europe's first GenAI-powered voice assistant for banking in October 2024. Unlike typical phone IVR systems, Lunar's solution uses a voice-native GPT-4 model to hold natural conversations. Customers can speak to it for 24/7 support with no wait times. 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In late 2024, it rolled out a feature for customers to send Pix payments using voice, text or even images through WhatsApp, with AI handling the interpretation and execution. From October to December 2024, a test was conducted using 2 million users. The AI can understand a message like 'Send R$50 to João' (even via voice note or a photo of a handwritten note) and then process that payment. Impact: This made transferring money even more convenient; users can simply talk or message instead of manually using the app. Thanks to AI optimizations, transaction processing time was cut by up to 60% without compromising security. For WhatsApp users, it removes the need to switch apps at all. By meeting customers in their preferred channels with AI, Nubank is enhancing UX through speed and simplicity, all while keeping payments fee-free and safe under Pix's guarantees. 19. Upstart (2024) AI Application: Loan underwriting and risk assessment Experience Impacted: CX - Banking Customer Experience AI Loan Underwriting Platform: The fintech Upstart has pioneered AI-based lending, and by 2024 its platform was adopted by 500+ banks and credit unions for personal and auto loans. Upstart's AI models evaluate credit risk more holistically than FICO scores. According to Upstart's results (2023), this led to 44% more loan approvals at 36% lower average APRs for the same risk level, compared to traditional models. Essentially, many borrowers who would be declined by legacy criteria can be approved by Upstart's model with affordable rates, because the AI finds subtle signals of creditworthiness. Impact: Upstart's lending AI has expanded access to credit for underserved populations (one study noted it approved 35% more Black borrowers and 46% more Hispanic borrowers than traditional methods) while maintaining or even improving loan performance. For consumers, the experience is also smoother. Over 80% of Upstart-powered loans are approved instantly with no human intervention, enabling nearly immediate decisions and funding. This case shows AI's power to make credit more inclusive and convenient. 20. Commonwealth Bank of Australia (2024) AI Application: Fraud prevention, customer service, security alerts Experience Impacted: CX - Banking Customer Experience Holistic GenAI Transformation: Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), the nation's largest bank, shared a strategic update in November 2024, showcasing significant advancements from its recent AI deployments. As one of the first banks worldwide to embed generative AI in customer-facing features, CBA has reduced customer scam losses by 50% through AI-powered safety tools like NameCheck, which flags payee name mismatches, and CallerCheck, which verifies the authenticity of calls claiming to be from the bank. Additionally, GenAI-driven suspicious transaction alerts have led to a 30% reduction in customer-reported fraud cases by proactively notifying users of unusual activity. CBA's AI-enhanced in-app messaging and virtual assistant have also decreased call center wait times by 40% over the past year, enabling customers to self-serve or resolve issues more efficiently before contacting support. Impact: CBA's AI initiatives have delivered substantial customer experience improvements, with a 50% reduction in scam losses, a 30% drop in fraud cases and a 40% decrease in call center wait times. CEO Matt Comyn emphasized that AI is pivotal to providing 'superior customer experiences,' enhancing both security and personalized service. The bank is also exploring AI automation for processes like business loan reviews to further save clients time. 21. Capital One (2024–2025) AI Application: Voice/text banking assistant Experience Impacted: CX - Banking Customer Experience, UX - Banking User Experience 'Eno' AI Assistant and Voice Banking: Capital One's Eno is an AI-powered chat and voice assistant that supports customers with tasks such as tracking spending and answering account-related questions. Originally launched as a text-based service, Eno expanded to voice interfaces and smart speakers. By 2024, Capital One reported that Eno reduced call center contact volumes by 50%, according to a case study by Redress Compliance. The assistant conversationally handles basic banking requests, provides insights like alerts for ending free trials or unusual charges and enables hands-free task execution. Impact: Eno's 24/7 availability has driven a 50% reduction in call center contacts, significantly improving service efficiency and consistency. Customers benefit from immediate responses, reducing wait times and frustration. Additionally, Eno enhances security through AI-driven account monitoring and background authentication. Serving Capital One's approximately 100 million customers, Eno demonstrates how an AI chatbot and voice assistant can scale customer support while delivering a human-like, seamless digital banking experience. Conclusion: from Hype to Habit Banks worldwide are leading the charge in AI adoption, leveraging the technology more extensively—and investing more heavily—than most other industries. By 2024, an overwhelming majority of banks have integrated AI into business functions—from back-office automation to customer-facing chatbots. This outpaces adoption in sectors such as manufacturing or healthcare, where AI use is growing but is not as ubiquitous. The advent of generative AI over the past year has only widened this gap, with banks quick to pilot GenAI for improved customer service, risk management and operational efficiency. Globally, financial institutions in regions like North America, Europe and Asia are all onboard the AI trend, though uptake is fastest in countries like India, China and the UAE, and somewhat slower in others due to regulatory or cultural factors. Both in the United States and the United Kingdom, 2024 can be seen as a breakthrough year for AI in banking. Virtually every major bank in every major market is now either using generative AI or actively planning to use it. They are motivated by clear benefits: better fraud detection, cost reductions, personalized customer experiences and by competitive pressure as fintech players and 'AI-native' firms disrupt traditional banking. Surveys show upwards of 90% of bank executives in the US and UK have greenlit AI projects or increased budgets for GenAI, demonstrating strong confidence in the technology. Going forward, the banking sector is expected to continue investing aggressively in AI capabilities. Analysts project exponential growth in AI spending by banks (e.g., global generative AI spending in banking could reach ~$85 billion by 2030). Key use cases like fraud detection, chatbots, credit scoring and algorithmic trading will become further enhanced by advanced AI. Banks will also likely collaborate with regulators to develop frameworks for responsible AI (as seen in the UK's surveys) and address challenges like bias and transparency. In sum, banking's early embrace of AI—now turbocharged by generative AI—is positioning the sector for significant transformation in the years ahead, outpacing many other industries in the AI adoption curve. 2024 was a pivotal year for AI in banking, as institutions worldwide moved from pilot projects to real deployments that tangibly improved the digital customer experience. Globally, banks observed that AI could boost both customer satisfaction and operational performance—a true win-win. By automating routine tasks and augmenting human employees, AI allowed banks to serve more customers with greater consistency. Quantitatively, we saw metrics trend in the right direction: higher Net Promoter Scores in markets in which digital CX was strong, record digital adoption rates (with active digital users exceeding 75%–80% at many banks) and significant increases in self-service transactions and chatbot interaction counts. One Capgemini study even linked AI-driven CX improvements to double-digit gains in satisfaction and revenue, underscoring the financial payoff of more satisfied customers. Qualitatively, customers in 2024 enjoyed more personalized, convenient and engaging banking services than ever before—from receiving tailored financial advice in-app to getting instant help from a friendly AI assistant at midnight. Use cases like generative AI chatbots went from novelty to mainstream, with major banks in the US and UK launching or refining such tools. Source: Capgemini, Shaping the AI-enabled customer experience for financial services Of course, the transition was not without challenges. Banks had to address customer trust and security concerns around AI. Surveys revealed that while people welcomed convenience, many remained cautious about AI handling their finances: over 57% of customers hesitated to use AI-generated financial advice, and a minority outright refused to use AI for banking tasks. Incidents of AI errors (or 'hallucinations') were taken seriously, and institutions implemented guardrails and testing to maintain accuracy. The human element also proved vital—leading banks found the best outcomes by combining AI efficiency with human empathy, ensuring that customers could seamlessly escalate to a person when needed. Regulatory and ethical considerations started to surface as well, prompting discussions on transparent AI algorithms and data privacy. Nonetheless, the overall impact in 2024 was clearly positive. Banks that embraced AI saw improved customer engagement, whether through more frequent app usage or deeper emotional connection (feeling that the bank 'understands me'). In markets like the US and UK, which we highlighted, AI became a key differentiator among competitors: those who leveraged it wisely reaped reputational gains, while those who lagged faced pressure to catch up. In conclusion, AI's adoption in banking during 2024 fundamentally elevated the digital customer experience. By delivering personalization at scale, enabling full-service banking at customers' fingertips, engaging users in proactive conversations, automating support and broadening accessibility, AI made banking more customer-centric than ever. The past year's advancements indicate that we are entering a new era of digital banking—one in which AI is embedded in every facet of the customer journey, often invisibly, making interactions smoother and more meaningful. As we move into 2025 and beyond, banks will likely build on this momentum. We can expect even smarter virtual assistants, more predictive financial wellness tools and further integration of AI into everyday banking operations. The competitive bar for digital CX has been raised: customers will gravitate toward banks that continue to innovate with AI in ways that genuinely improve their financial lives. The 'age of AI' in banking has truly begun, and 2024 will be remembered as the year that kick-started a transformation in how we all experience banking in the digital age.
Daily Mail
44 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Hopes 'fading' for US steel deal with just two days to go until Trump's deadline for hiking tariffs to 50%
Hopes are fading that the UK can finalise a US steel deal before Donald Trump 's deadline of Wednesday. Keir Starmer paraded his Transatlantic trade pact in May, suggesting that the industry would be spared any levies. However, steel was not covered in the implementation text released last month - with the UK subject to a 25 per cent rate. Mr Trump warned that could rise to the 50 per cent being imposed on the rest of the world from July 9 unless terms can be agreed. UK sources have admitted the the issues are 'complicated', with America worried about creating a loophole for imports from China. There have been suggestions that Britain could at least avoid the highest rate of tariffs while talks continue. Standing alongside Sir Keir at the G7 summit in Canada last month, Mr Trump said the deal was 'done', and refused to make any firm commitment to further progress on steel levies. The agreement with the US had already come under fire in some quarters for 'shafting' the UK, with America openly boasting that it had managed to achieve higher tariffs than before and get more access to markets. But asked if steel tariffs would be set to zero for the UK, the US President replied: 'We're gonna let you have that information in little while.' The UK has also not obtained any guarantee that the crucial pharma industry will not be hit with tariffs, and there are claims Sir Keir has conceded the NHS will pay billions of pounds more for drugs. Asked whether Britain would be shielded from future tariffs, Mr Trump said the UK was protected 'because I like them'. 'The UK is very well protected, you know why? Because I like them. That's their ultimate protection,' he said. The order issued by the president relating to the UK deal said the US 'may increase the applicable rates of duty to 50 per cent on or after July 9'. A government source told The Times: 'We are making progress but I think both sides recognise it is going to take a bit more time. The agreement with the US had already come under fire in some quarters for 'shafting' the UK, with America openly boasting that it had managed to achieve higher tariffs than before and get more access to markets 'We are hopeful that July 9 is not a hard deadline from the American point of view and while we will not see tariffs fall to zero then neither will we see them double.' Gareth Stace, director-general of UK Steel trade group, said: 'Every day of delay costs our steelmakers dearly. Contracts slip away, investment plans stall and uncertainty freezes business decisions. 'A swift and positive resolution is urgently needed to safeguard jobs, unlock growth and restore confidence in the UK steel sector.'
