‘We’re becoming an AI-enabled organisation’ – Standard Bank’s Margaret Nienaber

Standard Bank Group is pivoting from isolated tool adoption to embedding artificial intelligence (AI) as an operational capability across its business.

Africa’s biggest bank by assets reported this week that over 39 000 employees, representing 72% of its total workforce, are active users of generative AI tools.

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Additionally, approximately one-third of its technology staff are utilising AI-enabled coding applications, driving early productivity gains of roughly 20%.

The bank says it operates an enterprise AI platform built on Amazon Bedrock using a multi-model approach, allowing it to evaluate and run both open and closed models under centralised security protocols.

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“We are transitioning from simply using AI tools to becoming an AI-enabled organisation. That is a fundamentally bigger ambition,” says Margaret Nienaber, COO of Standard Bank Group, in outlining why technology access alone no longer offers a defensible moat.

“The winners in AI will not necessarily be the organisations with access to the newest technology, because increasingly many organisations will have access to similar models and tools. The real differentiator will be how effectively you combine that technology with trusted data, strong governance, the right skills and deep knowledge of your clients and markets,” she adds.

“AI is becoming a core long-term competitive capability rather than simply a technology capability. Our focus is on embedding it into how we serve clients, how we support our people and how we run the group, creating a foundation for long-term growth,” notes Nienaber.

The iceberg strategy

Standard Bank says that it structures its integration through an “iceberg” operational framework, balancing visible client-facing tools with backend system investments.

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“AI can give our people time back, but what we do with that time is what really matters,” says Nienaber.

“We want to reinvest it in the things humans do particularly well: judgement, creativity, relationships, empathy and solving complex problems for clients. This is why we see AI as augmenting our people rather than simply automating work. Technology on its own is not the competitive advantage – the advantage comes from what our people are able to do with it,” she adds.

According to the bank, the group’s tech deployment was reflected in the inaugural Evident AI Index for Banks in the Middle East and Africa (published June 2026), where Standard Bank ranked first among African banks and second overall across the Middle East and Africa region.

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