Swedbank CIO says biggest AI advances are still ahead

Swedbank CIO Lotta Lovén says the impact of artificial intelligence on work and society is still unfolding. “What is happening now will be as disruptive as when the internet arrived, if not more,” she told Techtidningen.

Lovén leads the bank’s technology and data organisation, with just under 3,000 people in technology and development. She began her banking career in 1986 and has held roles in business and digital development before becoming CIO in 2020.

Swedbank has used artificial intelligence for more than 10 years, including to monitor transactions and detect security threats. Generative AI, Lovén says, has changed the scale and speed of the shift. She sees its effects on professional roles and processes as more consequential than the technology itself.

The bank’s digital services must remain available while underlying systems change. Lovén says Swedbank has modularised much of its infrastructure, products and channels so that customer-facing services can move faster than deeper infrastructure. A network replacement took several years without interrupting customer-focused innovation.

AI is also helping the bank analyse and document older Cobol code as part of system modernisation. Lovén says the bank carried out major initiatives of this kind over the past year, work that could have been difficult to undertake before AI. The source article ends mid-sentence while describing another AI use in customer service.