TECH & AI
“ We need to show visible progress, and we need to take them with us and guide them through these steps”
Bettina Topali, Senior Software Engineering Manager, Hargreaves Lansdown
RECENT LEAPS IN AI DEVELOPMENT FROM LLOYDS
Lloyds Banking Group is trialling a new neurosymbolic AI platform from UnlikelyAI in its innovation sandbox. The partnership aims to enhance customer experience using AI that provides more reliable and explainable outputs, addressing the sector’ s caution around AI hallucinations. Developed by one of the minds behind Amazon’ s Alexa, the platform combines neural networks with symbolic reasoning. This test will assess the technology’ s ability to provide consistent and accurate support in customer-facing applications, a significant hurdle for AI adoption in the highly regulated financial services industry.
Utilising academia to introduce technology concepts is one method. Bettina mentions that similarly, businesses“ need to invest in our people, in our culture, and guide them. I think one of the biggest challenges in organisations, especially in large organisations, is that people have seen strategies failing and failing. I think we just need to bring people on the journey.”
By investing in people first, businesses provide vital stepping stones for the next generation of software developers.
Bettina continues:“ We need to show visible progress, and we need to take them with us and guide them through these steps. And then hopefully, gradually, all of this misbelief is going to be replaced by people actually believing in this strategy. All of these tools that are coming, they’ re going to start becoming even more available for us. They’ re very
136 November 2025