The transition from traditional banking to digital platforms has streamlined how banks manage finances, delivering convenience and speed directly to customers’ fingertips. But now, the industry is moving beyond digital adoption and into an AI-driven era.
According to Jason Cao, CEO of Huawei Digital Finance BU, this change is already well underway.
“AI development is unstoppable, and financial innovation never ends,” he said during his opening speech at Huawei’s finance forum during Mobile World Congress 2025 (MWC) in Barcelona earlier this year.
“The global financial industry has transitioned from ‘doing digital’ to ‘doing AI’. AI is being integrated into core financial workflows, profoundly transforming front, middle and back offices and architectures.”
However, he also warned that AI also poses unprecedented challenges to financial infrastructure and that “without adequate resilience”, there can’t be a transition from digital to intelligent.
“We must seize AI opportunities for business innovation while enhancing infrastructure construction to ensure resilience in the AI era,” he said.
The Fintech Times recently caught up with Cao to discuss how banks are adapting to this shift and what it really means to ‘do AI’ in finance.
Turning AI into practical solutions
Cao was clear that AI is no longer just an experimental tool; it is already embedded in many banking functions, from customer service to risk management.
“A leading bank we work with has been using live streaming, to promote products and engage customers,” he explained. “At first, real bankers did the streaming. But in recent years, they introduced digital humans. Now, these AI-driven digital humans are outperforming real people – they understand customers better and deliver more effective messaging.”
Beyond customer engagement, AI is increasingly being used in financial decision-making and fraud detection. “In just two years, we’ve seen AI move from being an assistant to becoming central to financial services,” said Cao.
Yet, as AI adoption accelerates, banks are also facing a critical challenge: ensuring their infrastructure can support it. With AI reshaping financial services at speed, the challenge isn’t just about adopting new technology, it’s about making sure banking systems can keep up.
That’s where Huawei’s latest initiative, the R-A-A-S framework, comes in.
Introducing R-A-A-S
This year, Huawei introduced the R-A-A-S framework – standing for Reliability, Availability, Autonomy and Security – as a practical implementation of the Four Zeros vision it launched last year (Zero Downtime, Zero Wait, Zero Trust and Zero Touch). The goal is to help banks build infrastructure that is not only AI-ready but also highly resilient.
Cao explained that the Four Zeros represent a long-term vision but making them a reality requires a structured approach.
R-A-A-S is built from real-world implementations with major banks and focuses on four key pillars: ensuring zero data loss with real-time synchronisation, minimising downtime with cloud-based microservices, using AI to automate operations and reduce human error, and deploying AI-powered security measures to detect and block cyberattacks within seconds.
“These principles are what will allow banks to take full advantage of AI without compromising stability,” said Cao.
Modernising systems
For many banks, however, modernising their infrastructure is easier said than done. Most banks spend most of their IT budget just maintaining old systems, says Cao.
“Many executives are near retirement, and they prefer to leave these challenges to the next person.”
That reluctance to overhaul legacy systems is one of the biggest obstacles to AI adoption. But some financial leaders are taking a different approach.
Cao recalled a well-known banking CEO who specifically visited China to see how major banks had made the transition. “He wanted to understand how they moved from legacy infrastructure to cloud-based, microservices-driven platforms,” he said. “More and more financial leaders are realising that modernisation is not optional, it’s essential.”
Huawei has already worked with some of China’s largest banks to implement the R-A-A-S framework. “One of the top banks we support serves over 500 million customers,” said Cao. “Migrating a system that large is a massive challenge, but it’s been done. This kind of experience is invaluable for banks worldwide facing similar challenges.”
Banking rethink
As AI becomes further embedded in financial services, its impact is extending beyond efficiency gains. Some banks are even rethinking their entire staffing models. “One major lender I spoke to plans to reduce customer service staff from 1,000 to just 50,” Cao revealed. “That’s a big shift.”
And as the pace of AI-driven change accelerates, banking customers themselves will start to feel the difference. “People may not need to use multiple banking apps anymore,” he suggested. “Instead, they could just rely on an AI assistant to handle their financial services for them.”
But while the possibilities are vast, Cao remains firm on one key point: resilience must remain a top priority. “More innovation means more challenges in maintaining stability,” he said. “That’s why last year, we focused on financial resilience, and this year, we introduced the R-A-A-S framework. It’s essential to ensure innovation doesn’t compromise stability.”
For financial institutions looking ahead, the challenge is no longer whether AI will play a role, but how well they can build the resilience needed to support it.
