AI is forcing banks to rethink modernisation, with Atos' Dee Lawler and Matthew Hughes

Now, I think we can't really go far in the news these days without talking about modernization.

It's on everyone's lips at the moment.

Dee, starting off with yourself, you know, why is everyone talking about modernization again?

Well, I think it's not a new concept in banking, right?

We were talking about this on the way here.

Modernization certainly is not a new conversation in banking.

We've been discussing legacy transformation for ages, core modernization, cloud, digital transformation for years, right? But what's interesting from the conversations we've been having is, and particularly in Australia, modernization is moving back up.

to the exec agenda this is not just a technology issue anymore and I think what's changed I think the

Well, I think, like you mentioned at the top, the short answer is the rise and proliferation of AI in our wider environment.

It's not just AI, it's agentic AI.

And essentially, that wider technology revolution that's happening around legacy systems is changing the conversation.

It's changing how we treat legacy systems now or how banks have to treat legacy systems.

So, Historically, a legacy platform would continue performing its core functions, operating as it needs to with perhaps upgrades or patches, and it would still deliver as expected.

But now that we've got AI coming into play, and it's the rise and rise and proliferation of AI on a daily basis, It means that organisations, not just banks, cannot simply stand still anymore.

They cannot just continue to upgrade as is because we've got new threats, but we've also got new potential benefits.

And therefore, in order to remain competitive and in order to protect banks, assets and systems from bad actors or malicious AI or rogue AI.

Banks, organisations have to act now and have to address legacy technologies.

And I say legacy, it's not necessarily means that they're all end of life.

It means that they're not... perhaps AI enabled or the underlying data is still siloed or it cannot be accessed by AI ready systems.

Therefore, banks and other organisations need to mobilise in order to remain competitive or become competitive and to grow and to protect their assets.

So from a technology perspective, banks need to be able to access data.

They have to be able to access trusted data.

It has to be clean.

It has to be governed.

It has to be classified.