Q&A with Nationwide Building Society, AI and Software Development Awards finalist

‘As AI becomes increasingly embedded into everyday work, we're placing our bets not just on capability, but on trust’

The AI and Software Development Awards celebrate the pioneers, teams, and organisations driving innovation in AI and software development.

This year's winners will be announced at a live awards ceremony on Thursday, 14^th May in London.

Nationwide is a finalist in Best Software Automation Project category.

We caught up with Sitaram Gopal Cherukuthota, Head of IT Automation, Nationwide, to learn more about the company's work this year, which propelled it to the finals of the AI and Software Development Awards.

Cherukuthota leads IT automation and observability initiatives at Nationwide Building Society within the SRE and recoverability domain. He focuses on automating operations, improving incident response, and building more resilient services across large‑scale, regulated technology environments.

Why do events like the AI & Software Development Awards matter?

Events like the AI & Software Development Awards matter because they provide a credible benchmark against how the wider industry is advancing. We work closely with well recognised partners to integrate platforms and fully leverage the capabilities of today's tooling ecosystems, driving higher levels of automation maturity within organisations. Forums like this allow us to validate our thinking, challenge ourselves against industry standards, and learn from peers. Most importantly, they help us understand how the industry is evolving and where we can further contribute - by pushing automation further and helping organisations realise more value from AI and software innovation

What would winning this award mean to you/your company/your team?

Winning this award would be a significant recognition for our team and our organisation, as IT automation is a major strategic priority across the organisation. While automation platforms have existed for years, they have often been implemented in silos, limiting their overall impact. Our focus has been on identifying real automation pain points faced by our colleagues and addressing them through intelligent integration of these toolsets, powered by AI. This approach has accelerated adoption and delivered tangible value more quickly.

An award like this would validate our work and position our teams as leaders in enterprise automation. It would also give our CIO and technology leaders greater confidence to scale automation use cases across the organisation—driving productivity, improving resilience, and enabling our colleagues to focus on higher‑value work. Ultimately, it reinforces our vision of an integrated IT automation ecosystem that proactively handles common, repeatable challenges, allowing the business to operate more efficiently and innovatively.

What is your/your company's proudest achievement over the past year?

Continuing our long-standing Branch Promise, Nationwide has remained firmly focused on putting members and customers first, ensuring they receive the high-quality service, trust, and support they expect from the UK's largest building society. This commitment was recognised in 2026 when Nationwide was named the UK's best bank in the Forbes World's Best Banks list. The recognition was based on feedback from more than 54,000 bank customers across 34 countries, reflecting not only strong customer satisfaction but also Nationwide's consistent approach to customer care, transparency, and long-term value.

This achievement reinforces the importance of maintaining a balance between trusted, human centred service and continued investment in modern capabilities. While branches remain a vital part of how Nationwide supports its members and communities, we also recognise the growing expectation for seamless, digital first experiences.

How has your industry changed over the past year, and what changes do you think it still needs to make?

Over the past year, the pace of change in the AI landscape has been unprecedented. Advances in foundation models and the emergence of intelligent agents have significantly simplified end‑to‑end operations across a wide range of roles and industries, moving AI from experimentation into real operational impact. However, as adoption accelerates - particularly within regulated sectors such as financial services - the industry still needs to mature in how it governs AI at scale. Building robust governance frameworks to manage the deployment and behaviour of AI agents is now critical. This includes ensuring strong controls around regulation, compliance, risk management, and ethical use, so organisations can innovate confidently while maintaining trust, transparency, and accountability.

What do you see as the main opportunities for your industry in the coming year? How do you plan to capitalise on them?

Looking ahead, one of the main opportunities for us is to use large scale change - such as Virgin Money integration - to significantly strengthen operational resilience. Our focus is on simplifying and standardising both processes and technology across the organisation, enabling us to make far more effective use of our core platforms. This creates the foundation to scale automation at pace, with AI agents further amplifying those capabilities. Crucially, this innovation is underpinned by a strong governance and compliance framework, allowing us to innovate boldly but safely. By doing so, we can improve resilience and productivity without compromising the priorities or experience of our colleagues.

What are the key demands you have seen from your customers (either internal or external) in the last 12 months?

Over the past 12 months, leadership has placed a steady emphasis on simplifying and standardising our tooling, while maintaining the ability to adapt and extend capabilities through code when needed. This approach helps teams reduce unnecessary complexity while still addressing specific business and technical needs.

There has also been growing interest in embedding AI capabilities and AI agents directly into applications, as well as making more effective use of AI across the software development lifecycle to support faster delivery and improved quality.

This is underpinned by a commitment to responsible AI use, with clear governance, transparency, and human in the loop controls to ensure appropriate oversight and decision making.

From a data perspective, customers continue to highlight the importance of standardising critical data elements. Consistent, high-quality data remains a key foundation for enabling AI driven processes and ensuring that AI agents produce reliable and meaningful outcomes.

Which new technology trend are you placing your bets on?

As AI becomes increasingly embedded into everyday work, we're placing our bets not just on capability, but on trust. With wider adoption comes greater risk around misuse, unintended impact, and regulatory exposure. As a result, one of the most important technology trends we see emerging is robust governance, compliance, and auditability within AI platforms. Governance‑by‑design - covering areas such as model oversight, agent behaviour, data usage, and regulatory compliance - will be a critical differentiator as organisations scale AI safely. Strong governance and audit frameworks are becoming deal breakers, particularly in regulated industries, enabling organisations to fully exploit AI's potential while meeting the highest standards of compliance and accountability.