DBS is extending its AI strategy beyond technology deployment into one of the more difficult questions facing banks: what happens to employees when AI begins changing the work they actually perform. The Singapore bank has signed an industry-first Memorandum of Understanding with the Institute of Banking and Finance Singapore (IBF) covering AI skills, job redesign, reskilling and early-career talent development, while separately launching a human-led Career Advisory Service for its workforce. The initiatives point to a broader shift in banking’s AI transformation, where institutions are increasingly having to manage not only which activities can be automated, but how thousands of employees move into roles built around a different division of work between people and machines.
DBS and IBF target AI skills across the workforce
The agreement is the first comprehensive MOU of its kind between IBF and a financial institution and establishes three areas of collaboration described by DBS as uplift, upskill and upbuild.
Under the first area, DBS and IBF will expand access to foundational AI capabilities through IBF-recognised programmes covering areas including responsible AI, AI governance, prompt engineering and practical applications of the technology. The initiative builds on DBS’s existing programme to provide foundational AI skills to its approximately 40,000 employees globally, including 14,800 employees in Singapore.
The bank will also use its experience to help IBF develop programmes that can be applied more broadly across Singapore’s financial services industry. This makes the partnership more significant than an internal training programme, as lessons from DBS’s workforce transformation could potentially contribute to how AI skills are developed across the country’s banking and financial sector.
The approach reflects a growing challenge for banks adopting generative and agentic AI. Deploying the technology to selected teams is relatively straightforward compared with preparing an entire organisation to work differently. Employees who may never build an AI model increasingly need to understand how to interact with AI systems, assess their outputs, recognise limitations and operate within governance requirements.
Reskilling moves closer to actual job redesign
The second part of the partnership focuses on employees whose jobs are being materially changed by AI rather than simply providing general AI education.
DBS and IBF will jointly test workforce interventions using IBF’s Job Redesign and Reskilling Career Conversion Programme alongside the bank’s own experience of retraining employees. DBS said it has already upskilled more than 11,000 employees working in roles significantly reshaped by AI.
That distinction between teaching employees about AI and redesigning their jobs around it is becoming increasingly important. Banks have spent considerable amounts on technology training over the years, but AI can affect the composition of individual roles much more directly. Administrative processing, document review, information retrieval, reporting and other repetitive activities can increasingly be automated or accelerated, potentially leaving employees responsible for a different mix of judgement, oversight, customer interaction and decision-making.
DBS describes AI as a “cognitive enhancer” that can remove repetitive and administrative work while creating additional capacity for employees to concentrate on critical thinking, problem solving and relationship building. The bank’s stated philosophy is to “save people, not jobs”, recognising that individual jobs and tasks will change while seeking to transition employees alongside that change.
This is a notable position as banks move from experimenting with AI towards deploying it more extensively in everyday operations. The workforce question is increasingly less about whether particular jobs will change and more about whether institutions can redesign roles and retrain employees quickly enough to keep pace with the technology.
Building the next generation of AI-ready banking talent
DBS and IBF are also extending the partnership into the future talent pipeline. The two organisations plan to provide students with practical exposure to the use of AI within financial services, including through IBF’s Young Talent Programme for AI in Finance, where DBS is a pioneer partner.
DBS has committed to bringing more than 500 young people in Singapore into its Management Associate, Internship and Traineeship programmes during 2026.
The emphasis on younger talent illustrates another dimension of the AI workforce challenge. Banks do not simply need more technology specialists. They increasingly require employees who understand banking and financial risk while also being comfortable operating in environments where AI is embedded into workflows, decision support and customer interactions.
That could gradually change what constitutes an entry-level banking skill set. Technical literacy, the ability to evaluate AI-generated information and an understanding of responsible AI could become increasingly relevant alongside traditional financial and analytical capabilities.
AI career tools are being paired with human advisers
Alongside the IBF agreement, DBS has launched a Career Advisory Service available initially to employees across its six core markets.
The service combines the bank’s existing AI-powered career development platforms, including iGrow and iCoach, with advice from more than 100 Career Advisors drawn from within DBS. Employees will be able to use the service to assess their strengths, explore possible career paths and develop plans for moving into different or redesigned roles.
The combination of automated career tools and human advisers is particularly relevant given the nature of the transformation DBS is attempting to manage. AI can identify skills, recommend learning pathways and potentially match employees with opportunities, but career decisions involving significant changes to someone’s role can require context and judgement that an automated recommendation may not provide.
Keeping a human element within the process also reflects DBS’s wider positioning of becoming what it calls an “AI-enabled bank with a heart”, where AI increases organisational capacity without removing people from the transformation process.
The workforce is becoming part of banks’ AI infrastructure
Much of the banking industry’s AI investment has initially concentrated on technology: models, data, cloud infrastructure, governance frameworks and individual use cases. As deployment expands, workforce architecture is becoming equally important.
A bank can introduce sophisticated AI systems without necessarily capturing their full value if employees continue working through processes designed for a pre-AI organisation. Conversely, simply automating individual tasks without redesigning the surrounding role can create fragmented workflows and uncertain accountability.
The next stage therefore requires banks to think about AI implementation at the level of jobs and operating models. Which tasks should machines perform? Which decisions should remain with people? Where should human review be mandatory? What new capabilities do employees require when routine work disappears? And how should career progression change when traditional entry-level tasks can increasingly be automated?
DBS’s partnership with IBF provides one model for addressing those questions at scale. Rather than separating AI adoption from workforce development, the initiative connects foundational education, reskilling, job redesign, career guidance and the future talent pipeline.
For the wider banking sector, that may become increasingly necessary. The institutions that extract the greatest value from AI may not ultimately be those that automate the largest number of jobs, but those that become better at redesigning how people and technology work together.
What it means for the industry
- AI transformation is moving from technology deployment into job design. Banks will increasingly need to reconsider complete roles and workflows rather than simply automate individual tasks.
- Reskilling is becoming an operational requirement. As AI enters everyday banking processes, workforce development will need to happen alongside technology implementation rather than after it.
- Human capabilities could become more valuable as routine work declines. Judgement, problem solving, relationship management and oversight are likely to become more important in roles where AI handles repetitive activity.
- Entry-level banking skills are likely to change. Future employees may need AI literacy and an understanding of responsible AI alongside traditional financial capabilities from the beginning of their careers.
- Workforce strategy could determine the return on AI investment. Banks that successfully redesign jobs around AI may capture significantly more value than institutions that deploy new technology into largely unchanged operating models.
Article Source: DBS
