Sovereign AI for Banks

Artificial intelligence is transforming the financial sector. For Swiss banks, the question is no longer whether to use AI – but how to do so securely, sovereignly, and profitably.

adesso supports banks in integrating AI into their daily work in a controlled manner: with secure hosting, clear governance, accessible corporate knowledge, and tools that the business department can use itself.

Data Sovereignty is a Boardroom Topic

Public AI tools may process contracts, HR dossiers, and client data in foreign cloud environments. For banks, the uncontrolled processing of confidential information thus becomes a compliance and data privacy risk. The central question is: Where is your data processed – and who has access to it?

Shadow AI is Already a Reality

Employees are already using free chatbots today, sometimes pasting confidential content. However, a complete ban is not a sustainable solution. The better answer is a secure, internal alternative that is easily accessible, offers concrete value, and enforces clear rules for handling data.

Your knowledge is there, but not accessible

Decades of experience and expertise lie in file shares, PDFs, emails, and business applications. This knowledge is valuable, but often remains hard to find in daily work. Retrieval-augmented AI turns this into immediately usable answers – with traceable sources and in compliance with existing access rights.

AI Must Reach the Business Department

AI solutions that require a developer team for every implementation are difficult to scale across the organization. That is why we empower business departments to identify suitable use cases themselves, make knowledge usable, and build simple agents in a controlled manner – within a secure and clearly regulated framework.

1. Enablement: Sovereign AI does not start with technology, but with people, processes, and clear ownership. Our enablement includes:

• Readiness check and assessment
• role-based training
• use case workshops
• templates for prompts and agents
• guidelines for AI usage
• definition of the operating and responsibility model

This turns the business department not just into a user, but into the owner of its own AI platform.

2. Sovereignty and Governance: The platform is built to protect sensitive data, control access, and keep activities traceable.

This includes, among other things:

• secure hosting in the desired environment
• detection and anonymization of personal data
• network isolation
• single sign-on and role-based access control
• audit trails
• monitoring and patching
• clear guidelines for models, data, and agents

Private LLMs can be used for sensitive information. For public content, commercial models may also be considered depending on the use case. Control, governance, and security mechanisms remain uniform.

3. Knowledge and Agent Engine: The technical foundation combines document understanding, knowledge bases, and agentic automation. The features include:

• processing and structuring of documents
• retrieval-augmented knowledge bases
• no-code agent builder
• answers with traceable sources
• role- and permission-based knowledge access
• interchangeable AI models

The architecture prevents unnecessary vendor lock-in: if a more powerful model becomes available, it can be replaced. The built-up knowledge assets, processes, and platform capabilities are preserved.

Whether an internal knowledge portal, intelligent document verification, customer service support, or specialized agents for compliance and operations: we develop solutions that fit your data, processes, and regulatory requirements.