DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
what does the destination actually look like? Is it a ghost-town back office entirely operated by algorithms, or is it something more collaborative?
Bill outlines a highly-structured, three-phase evolution toward what he terms the‘ frontier firm’:“ The journey to becoming a frontier firm – an organisation that embeds AI agents across every workflow to drive speed, agility and scalable innovation – plays out in three phases, each phase representing a deeper integration of AI into business operations.
“ Organisations may operate in multiple phases at the same time, depending on function and maturity.”
The three phases are empowering employees with AI agents; AI agents taking on specific tasks under human direction; and AI agents owning complete business processes.
Banks around the world are on different parts of this journey. For example, Barclays has completed the first phase, having first deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot to 15,000 users and then expanding to 100,000 employees worldwide.
“ Our rollout of Copilot, integrated with our colleague productivity tool, is a significant step forward in simplifying the way we work, making it easier to get things done,” says Craig Bright, Group Co-Chief Operating Officer at Barclays.
Meanwhile, Branco Brandesco and First Abu Dhabi Bank( FAB) are in the second phase of becoming a‘ Frontier Firm’ by encouraging their employees to delegate certain tasks to AI agents.
“ The Bradesco Intelligent Agent focuses on digital customer resolution that is highly secure,” Bill says.“ Serving 74 million customers, 100 % of initial interactions are handled by BIA and it has achieved 83 % resolution of customer inquiries. And FAB has deployed 18 agents in production across trade operations, customer service and finance. As a result, it has doubled processing capacity, reduced turnaround times by 50 %
120 August 2026