Investec’s contrarian AI bet: people over machines

South African banks are diverging sharply on AI strategy. Investec CIO Graeme Lockley insists the private bank remains 'human-first,' using technology only to handle repetitive tasks so staff can focus on client relationships. He warns against treating AI as a decision-maker and urges maintaining critical thinking. In contrast, Discovery Bank has launched Vitality AI as a core growth pillar (absorbing a R155-million operating loss), while Capitec has deployed AI tools to nearly 5,000 employees and an agentic credit processing system that blocked over 131,000 fraudulent beneficiaries and prevented R673-million in potential losses. Despite the strategic differences, none of the major banks frames AI as a headcount-reduction tool.