Banking on trust: Shaping responsible AI agenda for Sri Lanka

Artificial intelligence (AI) holds the potential to reshape every sector it touches. Yet history reminds us that new technologies are often met with caution and fear as to how they will alter the ways we live, work, and communicate, and by extension, how they impact livelihoods, relationships, quality of life and even our sense of purpose.

- By DaMmITH PALLEWATTE

And with AI, this sense of caution is certainly warranted. The implications for economies and societies are profound, yet unpredictable. Will it widen the gap between nations, or help close it? What we know from past revolutions is that first movers that are able to effectively navigate emerging risks associated with new technologies gain disproportionate advantages—potentially compressing decades of progress into just a few years.

For Sri Lanka, this debate is far from abstract. Stretching scarce resources is now a national imperative. Shortages of doctors, teachers, and skilled professionals strain public capacity, while migration and fiscal pressure intensify the challenge.

In healthcare alone, vast sums are often spent on a single treatment, with trial-and-error approaches wasting scarce resources. AI can change that equation—enabling more accurate diagnoses and personalised, targeted treatments in precise doses, cutting costs dramatically, and allowing the same resources to treat three or four patients instead of one.

The same principle and potential benefits apply across education, agriculture, banking and finance, public services and many other sectors. The speed at which this roll out takes place will hinge on the adaptability of players within each to identify and conceptualise AL-related solutions that are reliable and scalable to their unique requirements.

Banking and the frontlines of Al adoption

The value of AI in banking lies in its ability to rapidly process vast datasets meaningfully—detecting trends, surfacing insights, and forecasting risk with a precision that a human being is unlikely to match. For a sector where every decision has real consequences for lives and livelihoods of real people, this is both a transformative opportunity and a profound responsibility.