How effectively is AI being adopted?  

Currently in the AI space, the biggest debates and challenges being faced worldwide are about how you achieve the right balance between regulation of the technology and letting innovation thrive. At the recent Paris AI Summit, this was a topic at the forefront in the minds of the key decision-makers in attendance, and it is a difficult balance to get right, whatever the industry.

The area in which we operate, that of financial services, is already highly regulated in terms of financial responsibility, so the application on regulation to cover the use of AI is not a surprise to many who work in the industry.

The challenge is to ensure that the regulation does not constrain the industry from enjoying the efficiency gains, growth, innovation and many other benefits that AI promises to deliver. Taking a safety-first approach to any technology innovation is absolutely key for being able to successfully adopt and sustain the technology in the longer term.

Some may argue that there is already too much regulation which can provide blockers or restrictions, but such controls and guardrails are designed to maintain the stability of the system. At GFT, we believe it is essential to take a longer-term view, to find responsible solutions that will ultimately provide real business and technology leadership that lasts. Controls are therefore a good thing in allowing you to plan strategically and think ahead.

From the wider perspective, given the rapid advances with this nascent technology, we need to ask ourselves if we are building the right skills and the right volume of talent in the UK specifically? The UK is already noted as being one of the top exporters of education in the world, which suggests we do have the skills, training and capabilities to utilise AI technology, but we need to scale fast.
 

When examining how and if the technology really does transform businesses, it is important to understand that the tech itself is just an enabler to more fundamental business transformation. The use cases, ideas and approaches in which it is deployed need to come from the business users, who fundamentally understand how the business itself and the market operates.

At GFT, we work with large financial services customers, and we are constantly evaluating all available and emerging technologies so that we can help solve the many business problems faced by our clients across capital markets, retail banking, insurance and asset management.
 

It is less about who is building the models currently, and more about how you can leverage all of the technology that is currently available, especially when it continues to evolve at a fast pace. In speaking with CIOs and CXOs at large financial services organizations, they are looking to adopt new AI technology to bring about productivity and leverage these savings to drive future innovations. And this where GFT AI Impact has been fundamental to their journey. AI Impact is a great example of leveraging the right available models to securely gain efficiencies in the software development lifecycle.

GFT has recognised the huge benefits that can be realised in the entire software development life cycle (SDLC) by the utilisation of Gen AI, and is currently implementing our AI Impact solution in several tier-1 banks and insurance firms in the UK, Europe and South America. Using AI in this way, we are able to accelerate the SDLC process, automate code review and the documentation of both new and legacy code as part of any IT transformation initiative. We already have seen huge efficiency gains in areas such as mainframe modernisation and the analysis and migration of legacy systems to the cloud.
 

We’re continuing to actively work with clients to use the technology to improve the way software is developed, streamline code, speed up development processes and testing times. We see a huge appetite for forward-thinking firms to leverage these advanced tools to expand their business and deliver change more efficiently than ever. As we deliver these services for our clients, GFT is defining what being ‘AI-centric’ as an organisation really means. With our focus on business understanding meeting technology know-how, we are shaping the roles of truly customer-centric AI-centric services organisation.
 

The pace of change is huge and we have so much exciting work to do; there is no time like the present!