How AIB Builds Trust through Tech, Security and its New App

Allied Irish Banks (AIB) is currently coming to the end of a three-year strategic cycle focused on elevating its overall digital literacy – not just in AI, but across data and broader digital capabilities.

When Graham Fagan stepped into the Group Chief Technology Officer role at the beginning of this cycle in 2023, technologies like generative AI were not yet at the forefront of the industry’s mind.

Since then, he has taken on a combined role to include Group Chief Operating Officer. 

“There’s been a lot done,” he says. “It’s been a very interesting journey.”

Because of the rapid pace of technological change, the bank had to remain agile, adapting its roadmap in real time.

“We’ve had to incorporate those items [AI] into the strategy as we’ve moved along,” Graham explains. “It’s been a very consequential period in terms of laying the foundations for the next decade.”

Trust and infrastructure: job zero for AIB

While looking toward the future of AI, AIB remains anchored in its core responsibility to its massive user base.

“Banking is about trust and we take that very, very seriously,” Graham says. 

“We are a systemically important bank from a European perspective with 3.4 million customers… job zero for us is security and service.”

This commitment is reflected in the bank’s operational track record; AIB achieved an impressive availability level of 99.99% last year.

Equally, the bank has performed exceptionally well from a cyber perspective – an achievement Graham credits directly to robust architectural planning.

“We believe in being the best in Ireland, the UK and beyond,” he says. “But you’ve got to fight hard for that kind of performance every day. If your infrastructure is not there, you are not going to achieve that type of outcome.”

Ultimately, in a digital-first banking environment, reliability is the ultimate differentiator for consumers.

“Trust is the new user experience because as much as technology has advanced, in the volatile world that we operate in, availability cannot be taken for granted.”

The evolution of the AIB mobile app

AIB has launched a redesigned mobile banking app, marking its most significant digital overhaul in more than a decade to meet rapidly changing customer behaviours. 

The rollout addresses a critical industry challenge highlighted by AIB’s research: while 76% of Irish adults check their banking app multiple times a week, nearly half rarely use it for actual financial insights. 

By bridging this gap with a single ecosystem built for usability, security and financial empowerment, the bank is ensuring its technology serves a clear, practical purpose.

“We have built a digital engagement platform from the point of view of security from the ground up and our new mobile app is the first service to use it,” Graham says.

“We want to come up with the best banking app, but we want to also brig in a bit of additional flare and provocation around, such as if they would do this in the entertainment industry. We brought that in to challenge our own thinking.”

The app is also designed to help personalise customer experiences better.

“People want you to understand them but they also want to know our products and services are secure. The key trick there is the best security is the security you an see. They don’t want five layers of friction to do a simple task so we have put huge consideration into that for our mobile app.”

Why AIB prioritises user adoption over endless pilots 

Rather than chasing tech trends or forcing tools onto staff, AIB has taken a highly intentional, results-driven approach to AI implementation, prioritising targeted security upgrades and user adoption over endless experimentation. 

“A key thing we’ve learned over the years is you don’t push technology at people,” Graham says. 

“We put a significant adoption programme around it and we brought Microsoft Copilot to the forefront and knew very early into the rollout we were significantly ahead of the Microsoft benchmarks for adoption.”

AIB didn’t waste time on a bunch of useless tech experiments. Instead, it focused its energy on upgrading its security to fight high-tech criminals, helping software engineers code faster and building a digital assistant for customer service.

“We haven’t spun up loads of proofs of concept,” Graham adds. “You hear about this kind of pilot purgatory that people end in up in and they get a rush of blood to the head and they’ve started loads of pilots.

“We’ve been very intentional about what we were doing and where were doing it.”

Managing the consumer AI wave

AI is unique because, unlike previous enterprise technologies, it is already a massive part of our daily personal lives. 

“There is a consumerisation aspect of AI because people have it in their home lives,” says Graham. “Any technology where there’s been consumerization over the years means enterprises have to be mindful that colleagues will already have their own points of view about the tech."

To manage this shift, AIB’s Centre of Excellence (COE) acts as a protective, enabling coordinator to help the bank safely test, learn and align on new technology like code refactoring. Instead of acting as a traditional bureaucratic roadblock, the COE is designed to guide innovation safely.