KBTG unveils 5+1 strategic AI pillars to drive organizational transformation with agentic AI, empowering employees and elevating work innovation towards becoming a regional AI-Infused Tech Powerhouse

KASIKORN BUSINESS-TECHNOLOGY GROUP (KBTG) has announced its 5+1 strategic AI pillars to drive its transformation into a regional AI-Infused Tech Powerhouse by embedding AI across all workstreams to enhance employee capabilities, increase productivity, and foster continuous innovation. Central to this strategy is the development of autonomous, end-to-end AI agents, alongside the launch of an AI Playground - an open platform where employees can build their own agents, supported by robust quality testing and governance frameworks. This initiative aligns with KBank's 3+1 strategy and productivity agenda, which advocates for AI adoption to unlock business value through efficient and sustainable IT innovation. It also reinforces KBTG's commitment to a Human-First x AI-First philosophy - emphasizing AI as an enabler, not a replacement, empowering employees to work smarter, reduce repetitive tasks, and focus on high-value contributions.

Wednesday 30 July 2025 14:26
KBTG unveils 5+1 strategic AI pillars to drive organizational transformation with agentic AI, empowering employees and elevating work innovation towards becoming a regional AI-Infused Tech Powerhouse

Mr. Ruangroj Poonpol, Group Chairman of KBTG, stated that, since 2024, KBTG has been advancing its operations under the Human-First x AI-First transformation strategy, which integrates AI technologies with human expertise to develop and deliver modern financial services that meet the evolving needs of KBank and the broader business sector. This transformation has been driven by a key enabler: agentic AI - an AI model capable of coordinating and commanding other AI agents to perform more complex tasks.

KBTG is now accelerating the application of agentic AI across its software development and innovation processes, reaffirming its ambition to become a regional AI-Infused Tech Powerhouse. The strategy centers on embedding AI into every facet of the organization to maximize operational efficiency and technological capabilities. At the core of this transformation is the 5+1 strategic AI pillars, which consists of five key pillars: 1) AI for Banking - supporting KBank in applying AI capabilities in banking use cases; 2) AI for IT Delivery & Operations - using AI to transform core IT development and operations; 3) AI & Data Platform - designing and operating data and AI platforms for new use case integration; 4) Governance & Ecosystem - collaborating with all stakeholders to ensure responsible AI governance; and 5) AI Tech Business - commercializing AI tech for productivity and new revenue resources. The '+1' refers to the empowerment of people, equipping employees with AI literacy and readiness - a critical foundation underpinning all five strategic pillars.

KBTG's AI engineering team are currently laying the groundwork to fully integrate agentic AI into internal operations, enabling it to support both end-to-end software development processes and back-office operations with maximum efficiency. In the second half of 2025, KBTG will focus on four key priorities, including 1) Transformation of strategic banking business functions and operations with AI, with an emphasis on delivering productivity uplift and tangible ROI for business use cases; 2) End-to-end transformation of software development life cycle (SDLC) with in-house agentic AI capabilities; 3) Rollout of vertical agents for specific workflows and scaling existing agents; and 4) Promotion of staff acceptance and active use of AI tools to accelerate the transition towards becoming a truly AI-infused organization in the agentic AI era. This effort underscores KBTG's position as a leading financial technology organization in Thailand and the Southeast Asian region.

Mr. Jirat Srisawat, Assistant Managing Director - Software Development Excellence, KBTG, added that KBTG remains committed to leveraging AI to augment human capability rather than replace it. This approach is grounded in the concepts of augmented and embedded AI, which focus on seamlessly integrating AI into workflows, and platform democratization allowing employees to develop AI agents to aid their work. One example is AthenaMind, a specialized chatbot platform designed to respond to knowledge-based queries in areas such as HR, PDPA, vendor management, and cybersecurity by retrieving answers from internal databases - providing employees real-time assistance, available at any time. Another key initiative is the adoption of an AI coding assistant, which significantly enhances software development speed and quality. In 2025, usage of this tool has been expanded to more than 600 software engineers and testers across the organization. Results show that in certain use cases, it has improved productivity by more than 45 percent; over 10 million lines of code have been generated by AI and reviewed by engineers, which accounted for 10% of total codes; and costs have been reduced by as much as 32 million baht.

In the second half of the year, KBTG will advance its SDLC based on the concepts of augmented and embedded to cover all roles, such as Business Analyst agent, Solution Architect agent, Software Engineer agent, Testing agent, and DevOps agent, while maintaining high standards of quality and security. The organization has recently introduced a coding agent designed to enhance software engineer productivity on certain tasks. Recently, the coding agent was piloted with MAKE by KBank, reducing completion time of selected tasks from one full day to just 15 minutes.

Ms. Maysinee Nakmanee, Deputy Managing Director - Software Quality Management, KBTG, emphasized that quality remains the top priority for every product and service delivered to customers. To uphold this commitment, KBTG has integrated AI into its software testing processes. The first innovation in this effort is "Chai LAI", an in-house developed AI testing agent designed to support a wide range of testing functions, including test management, automation, and data generation, as well as performance testing. To date, KBTG has leveraged AI to generate more than 500 automated testing scripts.

In addition to advancing "AI for Testing", KBTG has also established a comprehensive framework to ensure the quality of AI systems developed in-house, an approach known as "Testing for AI". The framework, called "Sai JAI", is designed to validate AI behaviors and ensure that all development aligns with global standards and governance frameworks of both KBank and KBTG, so that every AI solution built by KBTG is not only advanced and effective, but also trustworthy and responsible.

Mr. Wanlop Visithamakun, Assistant Managing Director - Intelligence Engineering and Data Technology, KBTG, concluded by stating that KBTG does not view AI merely as a technology, but as a platform that creates business value and enhances workplace productivity. To strengthen its agentic AI capabilities, KBTG has developed multiple core components - including proprietary AI platforms, a modular architecture capable of integrating with multiple technology and service providers to avoid single-vendor dependencies, and a Large Language Model Gateway that allows developers to select LLM best suited to requirements. Most recently, KBTG has empowered employees to create their own AI agents based on individual ideas and business challenges. This initiative has led to the launch of the AI and Data Playground, a fully equipped platform that enables staff to quickly and securely build AI agents. This has significantly accelerated development time - from 30 days down to just one day - while also building confidence and turning AI concepts into tangible results. These efforts collectively enable KBTG to develop and scale AI systems that are accurate, fast, flexible, and ready to meet the evolving business needs of both KBank and KBTG through continuous innovation.

KBTG is committed to leveraging agentic AI as a powerful enabler for generating efficient and sustainable business value. This aligns with KBank's 3+1 strategy and productivity enhancement agenda, while reinforcing the Human-First x AI-First philosophy - placing people at the heart of its future-forward transformation. With its 5+1 strategic AI pillars, KBTG continues its journey towards becoming an AI-Infused Tech Powerhouse, striking a balance between new technologies and human potential. Through platforms like the AI Playground, employees are empowered to build their own AI agents - enhancing work with greater precision and flexibility. This vision reflects KBTG's unwavering mission to lead in financial technology across the region, to improve quality of life, and to drive sustainable financial innovation.