The risk management division of a leading financial institution was faced with the task of better assessing the potential of automation, digitalisation and AI for its own transformation. Pressure to innovate, regulatory requirements and rising expectations regarding efficiency made it clear that key processes would need to be automated to a greater extent in future. 

At the same time, the management team held different views on automation and AI, ranging from great openness to scepticism and reluctance to embrace change. The aim was therefore to establish a shared understanding of the opportunities, limitations and urgency of automation, to provide guidance on this complex, rapidly evolving topic, and to identify specific areas of focus for each individual’s area of responsibility.

bemorrow developed a compact ‘Executive Exploration’ programme on automation and AI for the management team: a curated format combining a bespoke conference, a workshop and joint reflection. Away from the day-to-day work routine, external insights, practical examples and facilitated working sessions were combined in such a way that automation and AI were not merely discussed in abstract terms, but became visible from different perspectives.

The session centred around four key impulses:

• Automation and AI in everyday work
• Agent-based automation in the banking environment
• Agentic AI and the typical “PoC trap”
• The development of AI assistants from standalone tools into collaborative sparring partners

After each presentation, the participants reflected together on opportunities, challenges and potential applications within their own areas of work.

To conclude, the day’s insights were consolidated, grouped into clusters and translated into concrete areas for action. In this way, inspiration and joint discussion gave rise to a structured outcome that provided guidance for the management team and facilitated further engagement with automation and AI within their own areas of responsibility.

The Executive Exploration session fostered a shared understanding of the potential and current limitations of automation and AI. By combining external insights, collective reflection and moderated synthesis, this complex topic concerning the future was made tangibly applicable to a highly regulated environment – not only as a technological development, but also as a leadership and transformation challenge.

A key outcome was the identification of prioritised areas for further action, including the further development of AI-supported applications, the establishment of knowledge and expert systems, the development of an automation strategy, the testing of AI agents, and issues relating to data foundations and architecture.

This created a solid foundation for the next steps: greater clarity within the management team, a shared framework for assessing the potential of automation and AI, and concrete starting points for systematically developing the division’s future viability.