Leverage your microservices, containers or code to build event-driven serverless workflows in a cloud-native platform. No need to re-engineer, re-skill or re-process. Direktiv is cloud native and serverless, which means it cloud, vendor and platform agnostic. It uses the latest event-driven architectures to drive the workflows or microservices orchestration. Users create elegant and simple workflows using a descriptive industry standard. Direktiv gives developers to use their current processes and the freedom to use their preferred (or ANY) coding language through the use of containers.

Direktiv

The Noonification: How to Use the Angular CDK Trap Focus Directive (2/26/2024)

A focus trap is a very important accessibility feature within a web application. In this post, I’ll first help you understand what it is, then why it’s important, and finally, I’ll show how to quickly and easily add the concept within your Angular apps where needed. And, it’s pretty easy thanks to the Angular CDK. Alright, let’s get to it. https://youtu.be/JKHAjYJ5T2o?embedable=true Accessibility can be a little difficult to understand or even think about if you’re someone who can see, hear, and use the web easily with different devices, so it can also be easy to build things that don’t work well for those who can’t. What Is a Focus Trap? A focus trap is a feature that helps make experiences better for these folks. It’s a way of managing user focus within a given container. Take, for example, a modal. If a user opens a modal without managing focus, when they start navigating via the keyboard by using the tab key, items behind the modal continue to receive focus. This is weird and not what the user would expect, right? We need to programmatically focus them within the modal. But this isn’t enough; if we stop here, as we tab through the modal, eventually, we’ll tab through all of the focusable items, and then, we’ll be back to focusing items within the original document behind the modal again. What we need to do instead is trap the focus so that when the user focuses on the last item in the modal, the focus will be placed back on the first focusable element in the modal on the next tab. Ok, now that we know what a focus trap is, we are probably beginning to realize that there’s going to be some effort to create this functionality, right? Well, not within Angular. With the CDK, this is pretty easy using the directive from the . cdkTrapFocus A11yModule The Angular Directive cdkTrapFocus Let’s look at an example. Here, we have a web app for the Vans shoe brand. Up at the top, we have a sign-up button. When we click it, and then tab around, we can see focus is moving around the items in the background. Not what we want, right? Ok, let’s add the . First thing we need to do in order to use it is, we need to import the . cdkTrapFocus A11yModule sign-up-modal.component.ts import { A11yModule } from '@angular/cdk/a11y';

@Component({
    selector: 'app-sign-up-modal',
    ...
    imports: [A11yModule]
})
export class SignUpModalComponent {
} For those of you who are unfamiliar with this acronym, Ally is an abbreviation for the word accessibility. It comes from the concept that the word begins with an A, ends with a Y, and there are eleven characters in between. The Angular CDK has several accessibility features within its accessibility module, and the directive is one of them. cdkTrapFocus So, once we have it imported, we can now use it within the template. We just need to add it to an element that wraps our form. sign-up-modal.component.html <div cdkTrapFocus>
    <app-sign-up-form (formSubmitted)="modalClose.emit()"></app-sign-up-form>
    ...
</div> Providing a Focus on Initialization With the cdkTrapFocusAutoCapture @Input Good news, the directive has an auto-focus feature built right in. We can use the . This input will automatically focus the first focusable item within the directive when it’s initialized. It defaults to false, so we need to provide a value of true. cdkTrapFocus cdkTrapFocusAutoCapture @Input <div cdkTrapFocus [cdkTrapFocusAutoCapture]="true">
    <app-sign-up-form (formSubmitted)="modalClose.emit()"></app-sign-up-form>
    ...
</div> Now, when we open the modal, the name field is properly focused when it’s opened. And, as we tab through, when we get to the close button, we’ll cycle back to the name field. Also, if we hit + to navigate backward, we’ll go in reverse order all without leaving the modal. shift tab So, not only is it super helpful for all users really, but it’s super easy to implement too. One last thing to note, the trap focus directive keeps track of the last focused element before its initialization, so when we close the modal, the focus is returned to the button that opened it. Nice, we just saved a ton of work and made our modal more accessible. Want to See It in Action? Check out the demo code and examples of these techniques in the stackblitz example below. If you have any questions or thoughts, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. https://stackblitz.com/edit/stackblitz-starters-2bznzs?embed=1&file=src%2Fsign-up-modal%2Fsign-up-modal.component.html&embedable=true

How to Use the Angular CDK Trap Focus Directive

কৌণিক সিডিকে ট্র্যাপ ফোকাস নির্দেশিকা কীভাবে ব্যবহার করবেন

So verwenden Sie die Angular CDK Trap Focus-Direktive

Cómo utilizar la directiva Angular CDK Trap Focus

Comment utiliser la directive de focus angulaire CDK Trap

एंगुलर सीडीके ट्रैप फोकस निर्देश का उपयोग कैसे करें

Angular CDK トラップ フォーカス ディレクティブの使用方法

Angular CDK Trap Focus 지시문을 사용하는 방법

Como usar a diretiva Angular CDK Trap Focus

Как использовать директиву Angular CDK Trap Focus

Açısal CDK Tuzak Odak Direktifi Nasıl Kullanılır

Cách sử dụng Chỉ thị tập trung vào bẫy CDK góc

如何使用 Angular CDK 陷阱焦点指令

You can jump to any section of the US Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial here. Section 1 - Purpose Artificial intelligence (AI) holds extraordinary potential for both promise and peril.  Responsible AI use has the potential to help solve urgent challenges while making our world more prosperous, productive, innovative, and secure.  At the same time, irresponsible use could exacerbate societal harms such as fraud, discrimination, bias, and disinformation; displace and disempower workers; stifle competition; and pose risks to national security.  Harnessing AI for good and realizing its myriad benefits requires mitigating its substantial risks.  This endeavor demands a society-wide effort that includes government, the private sector, academia, and civil society. My Administration places the highest urgency on governing the development and use of AI safely and responsibly, and is therefore advancing a coordinated, Federal Government-wide approach to doing so.  The rapid speed at which AI capabilities are advancing compels the United States to lead in this moment for the sake of our security, economy, and society. In the end, AI reflects the principles of the people who build it, the people who use it, and the data upon which it is built.  I firmly believe that the power of our ideals; the foundations of our society; and the creativity, diversity, and decency of our people are the reasons that America thrived in past eras of rapid change.  They are the reasons we will succeed again in this moment.  We are more than capable of harnessing AI for justice, security, and opportunity for all. This content was published on October 30, 2023, on . WhiteHouse.gov Attribution - Creative Commons 3.0

The US Presidential Directive on Artificial Intelligence

9 Common Technical SEO Issues and How to Fix Them - Beginners' Guide

This is yet another selfish guide! I'm writing this guide to help my future self set up MudBlazor with Blazor interactive SSR in a new project. And hey, the added bonus is that you can benefit from it too! Maybe it isnt’t so selfish after all, right?! This guide will focus on getting MudBlazor with Blazor interactive SSR set up and configured in a new Blazor project in dotnet 8. This is hopefully applicable for future versions of dotnet, as long as this doesn’t change behavior dramatically. Following this guide will ideally prevent you from running into all sorts of fun Blazor render mode issues. What is MudBlazor? Like with all user-interface tech stacks, it’s very common to have reusable control libraries. One such control library is MudBlazor. In their own words: MudBlazor is an ambitious Material Design component framework for Blazor with an emphasis on ease of use and clear structure. It is perfect for .NET developers who want to rapidly build web applications without having to struggle with CSS and Javascript. MudBlazor, being written entirely in C#, empowers you to adapt, fix or extend the framework. There are plenty of examples in the documentation, which makes understanding and learning MudBlazor very easy. Originally, I went looking for MudBlazor because I wanted to develop more of a customized list view in my application. However, the default controls didn’t seem like they did a great job of what I wanted. I’ve spent well over a decade building user interface applications in WinForms and WPF, so I’m no stranger to control libraries. But that’s exactly why I figured I shouldn’t need to roll my own — someone else has got this covered! What Are Blazor Render Modes? Blazor Web Apps use different render modes to control where and how components are rendered. The modes include: Static Server: Renders components on the server without interactivity.
Interactive Server: Also renders on the server but allows interactivity using Blazor Server.
Interactive WebAssembly: Renders interactively on the client-side using Blazor WebAssembly.
Interactive Auto: Starts with server-side rendering and shifts to client-side on subsequent interactions after the Blazor bundle is downloaded. These render modes are set using the @rendermode directive in the component’s code. More details on configuring and applying these modes can be found on the Microsoft documentation page. The focus of this article is not which render mode is better or worse, nor will I be doing an in-depth analysis. I wanted to provide this context so that you can see we’ll be using Interactive Server render mode to get Blazor server-side rendering (SSR) with our app. With that said, the distinction between client-side and server-side rendering is important for performance and interactivity: Client-side rendering (WebAssembly mode): Components are executed and rendered directly in the user’s browser using WebAssembly. This mode offers a richer, more interactive experience as it doesn’t require a round-trip to the server for UI updates. However, it involves a larger initial download and more resource consumption on the client side.
Server-side rendering (Server mode): Components are executed and rendered on the server. The rendered UI is delivered as static HTML to the client’s browser, and interactivity is maintained through a SignalR connection that manages event handling and UI updates. This mode minimizes client-side resources since the client doesn’t execute the component logic, but it relies heavily on the network connection to the server, which can impact responsiveness and user experience. Each mode has its use case depending on the application’s needs for performance, scalability, and complexity. The focus of this article is on a server rendering mode not because I claim it’s superior, but because it’s what I needed for my own development purposes. How to Get MudBlazor with Blazor Interactive SSR Working The following sections will give you the step-by-step actions required to get MudBlazor with Blazor interactive SSR working. You can follow along with this MudBlazor video tutorial as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxLc7cauJRg&embedable=true New Blazor Project Setup The first thing that we need to do is create our project in Visual Studio. To do that, we’re going to select the “Blazor Web App” project template from Visual Studio. Next, we’ll want to ensure we select the correct render mode. We want it to be “Server” as we see in the screenshot below. The other options are of course up to you. If indeed you need another render mode, then the rest of this guide is not for you as we’re strictly focused on server-side render (SSR) mode. Remember, the reason that I wrote this is that I thought I *had* to use the dual mode for supporting MudBlazor because the instructions I received didn’t seem to line up exactly. Configuring Mud Blazor with Blazor Interactive SSR Now that we have our project setup, it’s time to get going with setting up MudBlazor. I should note that they DO have instructions that you can follow on their GitHub — so if you’re getting stuck with my guide, go read theirs. However, I followed theirs the first time and still ran into some fun hiccups because I didn’t know what project to create. Not the fault of MudBlazor nor the fault of Blazor; Just Nick’s fault. Step one will be getting the Nuget package installed: dotnet add package MudBlazor And once installed, we only have a couple of spots to go update! Starting off, to make the MudBlazor accessible in our razor files by default, we can add the following to _Imports.razor: @using MudBlazor Slightly separate guidance from what they list on their GitHub, but we can place the following code in the <head> block of App.razor <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto:300,400,500,700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet" />
<link href="_content/MudBlazor/MudBlazor.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<MudThemeProvider/>
<MudDialogProvider/>
<MudSnackbarProvider/> Next, we add the following to the <body> block of the same file: <script src="_content/MudBlazor/MudBlazor.min.js"></script> And finally, we need these two lines into program.cs to enable dependency injection for MudBlazor: using MudBlazor.Services;
builder.Services.AddMudServices(); Using MudBlazor with Blazor Interactive SSR Now that we’re all configured, we can use MudBlazor! I started off with the sample application to prove this all out, so I figured I’d change the default “counter” page to use MudBlazor controls. Here’s the change to that code that I made: @page "/counter"

<PageTitle>Counter</PageTitle>

<h1>Counter</h1>

<MudText Typo="Typo.h6">
    Current count: @currentCount
</MudText>
<MudButton
    Variant="Variant.Filled" 
    Color="Color.Primary" 
    OnClick="ButtonOnClick">
    Click Me!
</MudButton>

@code 
{
    private int currentCount = 0;

    void ButtonOnClick()
    {
        currentCount++;
    }
} And if you want to see it in action: Wrapping Up MudBlazor with Blazor Interactive SSR This was just a simple guide to get you up and running using MudBlazor with Blazor interactive SSR! If you start off with the Blazor server-side rendering project instead of the dual mode where it’s auto server and webassembly, you’ll have a much better time. However, maybe you know what you’re doing significantly better than me and you’re ready to jump into the dual render-mode support — but I certainly was not! If you found this useful and you’re looking for more learning opportunities, consider subscribing to my free weekly software engineering newsletter and check out my free videos on YouTube! This is yet another selfish guide! I'm writing this guide to help my future self set up MudBlazor with Blazor interactive SSR in a new project. And hey, the added bonus is that you can benefit from it too! Maybe it isnt’t so selfish after all, right?! This guide will focus on getting MudBlazor with Blazor interactive SSR set up and configured in a new Blazor project in dotnet 8. This is hopefully applicable for future versions of dotnet, as long as this doesn’t change behavior dramatically. Following this guide will ideally prevent you from running into all sorts of fun Blazor render mode issues . all sorts of fun Blazor render mode issues What is MudBlazor? Like with all user-interface tech stacks, it’s very common to have reusable control libraries. One such control library is MudBlazor . In their own words: MudBlazor MudBlazor is an ambitious Material Design component framework for Blazor with an emphasis on ease of use and clear structure. It is perfect for .NET developers who want to rapidly build web applications without having to struggle with CSS and Javascript. MudBlazor, being written entirely in C#, empowers you to adapt, fix or extend the framework. There are plenty of examples in the documentation, which makes understanding and learning MudBlazor very easy. MudBlazor is an ambitious Material Design component framework for Blazor with an emphasis on ease of use and clear structure. It is perfect for .NET developers who want to rapidly build web applications without having to struggle with CSS and Javascript. MudBlazor, being written entirely in C#, empowers you to adapt, fix or extend the framework. There are plenty of examples in the documentation, which makes understanding and learning MudBlazor very easy. Originally, I went looking for MudBlazor because I wanted to develop more of a customized list view in my application . However, the default controls didn’t seem like they did a great job of what I wanted. I’ve spent well over a decade building user interface applications in WinForms and WPF, so I’m no stranger to control libraries. But that’s exactly why I figured I shouldn’t need to roll my own — someone else has got this covered! customized list view in my application What Are Blazor Render Modes? Blazor Web Apps use different render modes to control where and how components are rendered. The modes include: Static Server: Renders components on the server without interactivity. Interactive Server: Also renders on the server but allows interactivity using Blazor Server. Interactive WebAssembly: Renders interactively on the client-side using Blazor WebAssembly. Interactive Auto: Starts with server-side rendering and shifts to client-side on subsequent interactions after the Blazor bundle is downloaded. Static Server : Renders components on the server without interactivity. Static Server Interactive Server : Also renders on the server but allows interactivity using Blazor Server. Interactive Server Interactive WebAssembly : Renders interactively on the client-side using Blazor WebAssembly. Interactive WebAssembly Interactive Auto : Starts with server-side rendering and shifts to client-side on subsequent interactions after the Blazor bundle is downloaded. Interactive Auto These render modes are set using the @rendermode directive in the component’s code. More details on configuring and applying these modes can be found on the Microsoft documentation page . @rendermode Microsoft documentation page The focus of this article is not which render mode is better or worse, nor will I be doing an in-depth analysis. I wanted to provide this context so that you can see we’ll be using Interactive Server render mode to get Blazor server-side rendering (SSR) with our app. With that said, the distinction between client-side and server-side rendering is important for performance and interactivity: Client-side rendering (WebAssembly mode): Components are executed and rendered directly in the user’s browser using WebAssembly. This mode offers a richer, more interactive experience as it doesn’t require a round-trip to the server for UI updates. However, it involves a larger initial download and more resource consumption on the client side. Server-side rendering (Server mode): Components are executed and rendered on the server. The rendered UI is delivered as static HTML to the client’s browser, and interactivity is maintained through a SignalR connection that manages event handling and UI updates. This mode minimizes client-side resources since the client doesn’t execute the component logic, but it relies heavily on the network connection to the server, which can impact responsiveness and user experience. Client-side rendering (WebAssembly mode): Components are executed and rendered directly in the user’s browser using WebAssembly. This mode offers a richer, more interactive experience as it doesn’t require a round-trip to the server for UI updates. However, it involves a larger initial download and more resource consumption on the client side. Client-side rendering Server-side rendering (Server mode): Components are executed and rendered on the server. The rendered UI is delivered as static HTML to the client’s browser, and interactivity is maintained through a SignalR connection that manages event handling and UI updates. This mode minimizes client-side resources since the client doesn’t execute the component logic, but it relies heavily on the network connection to the server, which can impact responsiveness and user experience. Server-side rendering Each mode has its use case depending on the application’s needs for performance, scalability, and complexity. The focus of this article is on a server rendering mode not because I claim it’s superior, but because it’s what I needed for my own development purposes. How to Get MudBlazor with Blazor Interactive SSR Working The following sections will give you the step-by-step actions required to get MudBlazor with Blazor interactive SSR working. You can follow along with this MudBlazor video tutorial as well: You can follow along with this MudBlazor video tutorial as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxLc7cauJRg&embedable=true https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxLc7cauJRg&embedable=true New Blazor Project Setup The first thing that we need to do is create our project in Visual Studio. To do that, we’re going to select the “Blazor Web App” project template from Visual Studio. Next, we’ll want to ensure we select the correct render mode. We want it to be “Server” as we see in the screenshot below. The other options are of course up to you. If indeed you need another render mode, then the rest of this guide is not for you as we’re strictly focused on server-side render (SSR) mode. Remember, the reason that I wrote this is that I thought I *had* to use the dual mode for supporting MudBlazor because the instructions I received didn’t seem to line up exactly. Configuring Mud Blazor with Blazor Interactive SSR Now that we have our project setup, it’s time to get going with setting up MudBlazor. I should note that they DO have instructions that you can follow on their GitHub — so if you’re getting stuck with my guide, go read theirs. However, I followed theirs the first time and still ran into some fun hiccups because I didn’t know what project to create. Not the fault of MudBlazor nor the fault of Blazor; Just Nick’s fault. on their GitHub Step one will be getting the Nuget package installed: dotnet add package MudBlazor dotnet add package MudBlazor And once installed, we only have a couple of spots to go update! Starting off, to make the MudBlazor accessible in our razor files by default, we can add the following to _Imports.razor : _Imports.razor @using MudBlazor @using MudBlazor Slightly separate guidance from what they list on their GitHub, but we can place the following code in the <head> block of App.razor <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto:300,400,500,700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet" />
<link href="_content/MudBlazor/MudBlazor.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<MudThemeProvider/>
<MudDialogProvider/>
<MudSnackbarProvider/> <link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto:300,400,500,700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet" />
<link href="_content/MudBlazor/MudBlazor.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<MudThemeProvider/>
<MudDialogProvider/>
<MudSnackbarProvider/> Next, we add the following to the <body> block of the same file: <script src="_content/MudBlazor/MudBlazor.min.js"></script> <script src="_content/MudBlazor/MudBlazor.min.js"></script> And finally, we need these two lines into program.cs to enable dependency injection for MudBlazor: using MudBlazor.Services;
builder.Services.AddMudServices(); using MudBlazor.Services;
builder.Services.AddMudServices(); Using MudBlazor with Blazor Interactive SSR Now that we’re all configured, we can use MudBlazor! I started off with the sample application to prove this all out, so I figured I’d change the default “counter” page to use MudBlazor controls. Here’s the change to that code that I made: @page "/counter"

<PageTitle>Counter</PageTitle>

<h1>Counter</h1>

<MudText Typo="Typo.h6">
    Current count: @currentCount
</MudText>
<MudButton
    Variant="Variant.Filled" 
    Color="Color.Primary" 
    OnClick="ButtonOnClick">
    Click Me!
</MudButton>

@code 
{
    private int currentCount = 0;

    void ButtonOnClick()
    {
        currentCount++;
    }
} @page "/counter"

<PageTitle>Counter</PageTitle>

<h1>Counter</h1>

<MudText Typo="Typo.h6">
    Current count: @currentCount
</MudText>
<MudButton
    Variant="Variant.Filled" 
    Color="Color.Primary" 
    OnClick="ButtonOnClick">
    Click Me!
</MudButton>

@code 
{
    private int currentCount = 0;

    void ButtonOnClick()
    {
        currentCount++;
    }
} And if you want to see it in action: Wrapping Up MudBlazor with Blazor Interactive SSR This was just a simple guide to get you up and running using MudBlazor with Blazor interactive SSR! If you start off with the Blazor server-side rendering project instead of the dual mode where it’s auto server and webassembly, you’ll have a much better time. However, maybe you know what you’re doing significantly better than me and you’re ready to jump into the dual render-mode support — but I certainly was not! If you found this useful and you’re looking for more learning opportunities, consider subscribing to my free weekly software engineering newsletter and check out my free videos on YouTube ! subscribing to my free weekly software engineering newsletter free videos on YouTube

How to Use MudBlazor with Blazor Interactive SSR

Navigating Complex Search Tasks with AI Copilots: Opportunities

The is going through a big change at the moment. Customers want different things, competition is tough, shareholders expect more, and there are lots of new technical advances. As a result, banks have to change the way they do things digitally. It's not that banks don't want to change — it's that there are big hurdles in the way. In this article, we'll take a close look at these hurdles. banking industry We'll start by looking at the top three external challenges that are impacting digital transformation in banking. Limited Ability to Partner with Fintechs The banking sector traditionally operates in a silo mentality, which makes collaboration with fintech companies a challenge. Navigating it requires understanding the ethos of collaboration, aligning goals, and creating symbiotic partnerships that can drive innovation within the banking sector. In many cases, banks find it difficult to establish these partnerships due to concerns about data and financial security. However, fostering an environment of proactive engagement with fintech companies can greatly boost efforts to overcome the challenges of digital transformation. Here’s what a Chief Digital Officer at a U.S. bank anonymously in a survey: shared “When we work with a third party, we expect to hold them to every standard we have, even when it’s onerous to us.” Many banks acknowledge partnering with FinTechs as vital to their success, despite the potential risks, such as the loss of control over new digital services. An example is a large bank in the Asia-Pacific region adopting Apple Pay due to customer demand, despite initial hesitations. That said, forming partnerships with FinTechs is not without challenges. FinTech companies, given their different IT systems and speedy operations, may not have the capacity to integrate seamlessly with the complex systems of traditional financial institutions. Barclays Ventures CEO, Ben Daley, the role of larger organizations in helping FinTech companies navigate these complexities. acknowledged to Deloitte Successful banking-FinTech partnerships are not built overnight but require a shared long-term vision and matching values. Aligning corporate goals is key to overcoming these financial services industry challenges and preventing partnerships from crumbling due to mismatched expectations. Regulations Constraining Large-Scale Digital Initiatives Existing regulatory frameworks struggle to keep up with the speed of technological innovation. Regulators are being urged to adopt more agile and principle-based regulations that can evolve over time, instead of fixed and potentially outdated structures. “PSD2 (European Commission Payment Services Directive 2) is coming into force now and it was designed seven, eight years ago—so you can imagine the changes [in the marketplace] … We need to think about activity-based regulation.” – , Executive Chairman of Grupo Santander Ana Botín Financial institutions are governed by a unique set of rules and regulations compared to start-ups and FinTechs. These regulations are often based on the type of institution rather than its specific activities. This poses a challenge as the landscape of financial services is quickly evolving, with services being repackaged and restructured in new ways. There are a few key regulations that are impacting large-scale digital transformation in banks: . Laws like Europe's GDPR and California's CCPA strictly dictate how banks handle customer data, making it harder to offer personalized digital experiences. Data Privacy Rules . These regulations mandate thorough identity checks and constant transaction scrutiny to prevent illegal activities, complicating the process of digital onboarding and account setup. AML and KYC Rules . Post-2008 financial crisis regulations force banks to maintain a high volume of cash and assets, restricting their ability to invest in novel digital platforms and operations. Capital and Liquidity Requirements . The increasing demand for cybersecurity, breach notification, and resilience calls for significant IT investments from banks, ensuring secure digital channels and protection against cyber threats. Cybersecurity Rules . Many banks rely on outdated systems and cumbersome infrastructure that hampers the creation of agile new digital platforms. Addressing these legacy systems requires a major tech overhaul. Legacy Tech Limitations High Investor Expectations Hindering Digitalization Efforts With soaring investor expectations, banks often find themselves under pressure to deliver immediate returns. This has the potential to stifle long-term digitalization efforts, that require time, patience, and a tolerance for risk. Regional banks such as PNC and US Bank plans for national digital expansion and new digital-only bank brands. Investor enthusiasm has been dampened by economic conditions and challenges in the financial services industry, particularly in balancing digital growth with risk management. Here’s what an anonymous Chief Innovation and Technology Officer at a UK bank said to : have scaled back Deloitte “Shareholder expectations really put a strain on how much money you can put into digital transformation. Everyone knows the customers’ demands, but it is about us creating the financial capacity to invest in it. We know what to improve, just how do we do it? You have to hit ROE numbers or your share price won’t perform.” High investor expectations have a substantial effect on financial services transformation. As stakeholders of the bank, investors naturally demand good short-term returns. However, these expectations can sometimes put banks under pressure, making them wary of investing in digital transformation – an initiative that usually requires time to show a return on investment. Similarly, in Q3 2022, Wells Fargo slower-than-expected progress on its digital transformation initiatives. This led to disappointment from investors and analysts, with the bank's stock price falling over 5%. Wells Fargo had to scale back some of its digital priorities to focus on stabilization and risk/compliance projects. announced Balancing these expectations while investing in long-term digital transformation often becomes a challenge. Let's now shift our focus to the top 3 internal digital banking challenges that hinder the digital transformation initiative within banks. Legacy Systems and Lack of Interoperability Around are still dependent on legacy systems. Updating and adjusting old systems to work with new digital technologies hold bank digital transformation behind. Interoperability issues often stump digital transformation plans. 60% of banks Wells Fargo in March 2023 that left millions of customers unable to access online/mobile banking or ATMs for over 24 hours. The bank blamed the outage on its reliance on outdated infrastructure that couldn't handle a power shutdown. Similarly, Bank of America that it would delay the launch of its real-time payments platform due to technical difficulties interfacing the new tech with the bank's older systems. suffered a systems outage announced in 2023 Even though many banks see the need to move away from these old systems, practical changes often pose a challenge without disturbing existing work. Moreover, not all fintech and digital banking solutions are made to work well with legacy systems, leading to pricy and dragging customizations. Banks need to work around old systems that have been in use for many years. These legacy systems often fail to offer the compatibility needed for successful digital banking transformation. Banks then, face the issue of upgrading these systems without hindering daily operations. This demands careful planning and gradual application to ensure a smooth transition. Ultimately, the obstacle doesn't rest solely on the technology itself, but how it’s integrated into the banks’ current system, procedures, and culture. Adopting digital banking transformation means developing comprehensive strategies that not only incorporate the technology but also delineate how it will impact and improve various processes within the bank. Focus on Regulatory Changes, Instead of Finance Transformation Initiatives Often, internal focus on complying with regulatory changes takes precedence over technological transformation, creating more banking industry challenges. Nearly are concerned about meeting regulatory compliance. While this focus protects banks from potential legal risks, it can divert valuable resources and attention away from much-needed digital transformation. 50% of banks This is yet another internal issue of digital transformation challenges. Although regulatory changes are crucial for controlling risk and improving transparency, they can also shift the focus away from digital transformation initiatives. Institutions need to find a balance between meeting regulatory demands and prioritizing digital initiatives by creating dedicated teams or outsourcing regulatory processes. Digital transformation in banking goes hand in hand with regulatory compliance – a factor that often diverts attention and resources away from innovation. That's because regulatory changes in the banking industry are frequent and substantial, imposing a significant burden on banks' internal structures. The constant flux of rules and norms forces many financial institutions to focus their efforts on ensuring policy adherence rather than driving digital innovation. This mindset constricts the tempo of digital transformation, ultimately slowing progress within the financial services industry. Risk-conscious Culture Preventing Innovation It's no secret embracing the risk involved with innovation could potentially lead to tremendous growth. The future of finance lies in digitalization, from fintech collaborations to the wide-scale implementation of blockchain technologies. Thus, fostering a more balanced culture that values both safety and innovation is one of the biggest challenges of digital transformation in banking. Moving forward, banks should look into integrating their risk-conscious nature with the agility and innovation of fintechs. Incorporating IT for financial services should be considered a key element in any banking transformation plan, with strategies adjusted to accommodate industry regulations without stifling progress. The path towards more customer-focused, efficient, and secure banking services may be filled with challenges, but these obstacles are vital stepping stones toward digital transformation in banking. As banks start to reevaluate their risk-averse attitudes and welcome change, the promise of a fully digital, customer-centric era in finance edges closer to reality. Summary Employing a banking digital transformation demands a well-planned, strategic methodology that considers both external and internal elements. Only have succeeded in digitally transforming at scale, which emphasizes the need to approach it strategically. Overcoming these challenges is tough, but the benefits make it worthwhile. 17% of banks “The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo.” — Bob Iger

Top 6 Challenges of Digital Transformation in Banking

In a landmark paper published March 29, 2024, in the journal, Entropy, a team of visionary researchers from VERSES AI has unveiled a groundbreaking framework that could pave the way for the emergence of a new form of artificial intelligence , operating on the principles of natural intelligence— one that arises from the dense interactions of networked intelligent agents, rather than from a single, monolithic system. based on a first-principles approach to multi-scale artificial intelligence The study, titled “Shared Protentions in Multi-Agent Active Inference,” represents a major milestone in VERSES AI’s ambitious roadmap towards “shared intelligence” and could have profound implications for the future of AI and human-machine cooperation. The Power of Active Inference and Shared Protentions The research, led by Mahault Albarracin and co-authored by Riddhi Jain, Toby St Clere Smithe, Daniel Friedman, Maxwell Ramstead, and renowned neuroscientist Dr. Karl Friston, pioneer of and the , draws upon insights from philosophy, biology, and mathematics to explore how shared goals and collective intelligence can emerge from the interactions of individual intelligent agents. Central to their framework is the concept of “shared protentions” — mutually attuned expectations about future states and actions that enable agents to coordinate their behaviors towards common objectives. Active Inference Free Energy Principle What are "Protentions?" The philosophical foundation of the work lies in the concept of “inner time consciousness” developed by the early 20th-century thinker Edmund Husserl. Husserl proposed that our subjective experience of the present moment always has a certain “temporal thickness” — it encompasses not just the immediate instant, but also traces of the just-past (which he called “retentions”) and anticipations of the near-future (termed “protentions”). The authors of the new study take this idea of an individual’s temporal experience and extend it to the level of a social group. They introduce the notion of “shared protentions” — the idea that members of a group can develop mutually attuned expectations about future states and actions, which then allow them to coordinate their behaviors. How Does it Work? To translate this philosophical concept into a scientific model, the researchers employ a framework from theoretical biology known as “active inference.” This approach views living organisms as continuously making inferences about the state of their environment and selecting actions that minimize surprises and uncertainty. The authors show how Husserl’s ideas can be mapped onto the components of an active inference model. Sensory inputs correspond to raw “hyletic data,” (impressions that form perceptions), while the inferred causes of those sensations make up what we perceive as our experience. Crucially, the model equips each individual with an internal representation that includes not just their own states but also those of other group members. This allows the model to capture how individuals infer each other’s mental states and anticipate their actions. Leveraging Category Theory for Unified Representation The most innovative aspect of the new framework is its integration of mathematical tools from a field known as category theory. The researchers now express how individuals make decisions using abstract math concepts known as “polynomial functors,” which represent their potential interactions and observations. They then use a technique called “sheaf theory” to stitch together the compatible parts of these individual models. This results in a unified picture of the group’s shared understanding, termed a “consensus topos” by the authors. Within this formal framework, the “shared protentions” that enable coordinated group action emerge spontaneously as a consequence of each individual’s understanding and reasoning being influenced by the need to maintain consistency with the group. In other words, the underlying alignment of expectations that allows individuals to work together towards common goals arises naturally from the mathematics of the model. An Example from Nature Think of it like a flock of birds flying together. Each bird is constantly adjusting its own movements based on what it sees the other birds doing. It doesn’t need to have a detailed plan or a leader telling it what to do — it just naturally falls into formation by following simple rules and paying attention to its neighbors. A Human Example - Alignment of Understanding and Anticipation We can also use the example of a sports team, like a basketball team, playing together on the court. Each player on the team has a mental model of the game — they understand the rules, the objectives, and the general strategy. But more importantly, they also have a sense of what their teammates are likely to do in any given situation. This understanding is built up through hours of practice and gameplay together. During a fast-paced game, there’s no time for the players to stop and discuss each play in detail. Instead, they rely on their shared understanding and anticipation of each other’s actions. The point guard, for instance, might make a split-second decision to pass the ball to a particular teammate, not because they discussed it beforehand, but because they anticipate that the teammate will be in the right position to receive the pass. This is a prime example of “shared protentions” in action. Each player’s individual actions are guided by their expectations of what their teammates will do. And these expectations are not just one-way — they’re reciprocal and self-reinforcing. The teammate anticipates the pass because they know the point guard is likely to make it, and the point guard makes the pass because they anticipate the teammate being ready for it. Over time, this interplay of expectations and actions leads to a highly coordinated style of play, where the team seems to move and think as one unit. And importantly, this coordination emerges not from any one player’s explicit instructions, but from the implicit alignment of each player’s understanding and anticipations. This is the essence of what the researchers’ mathematical model captures — It’s a powerful insight into the cognitive underpinnings of teamwork and collective action. how shared goals and coordinated action can arise naturally from the interplay of individual minds, guided by the need to maintain a coherent, mutually aligned understanding of the world. VERSES AI's Vision for Shared Intelligence The significance of this work extends far beyond the realm of academic theory. In a post on LinkedIn, Albarracin explained that the paper “sets the stage for .” This stage, which roughly corresponds to what is popularly known as “Artificial Super-Intelligence,” envisions the emergence of planetary-scale, distributed intelligences from the highly coordinated interactions of networked Intelligent Agents. The key insight of the “Shared Protentions” paper is that such collective intelligences are not just a distant dream but a natural consequence of the principles of Active Inference and the mathematical tools of category theory. VERSES’ Active Inference intelligence roadmap stage S4 of Shared Intelligence The Mathematics of Shared Intelligence To understand how this works, it’s helpful to step back and consider the basic premise of Active Inference. This framework, rooted in neuroscience and theoretical biology, views Intelligent Agents as constantly making deductions and drawing conclusions about the state of their environment and choosing to act in a way that closes the gap between expectation and reality — refining understanding to better anticipate what will happen. In the “Shared Protentions” paper, the authors show how this process of inference and action selection can be formally modeled using abstract mathematical objects called “polynomial functors” and “sheaves,” as explained above. Coordinating Intelligent Agents through Implicit Alignment By applying these tools to networks of interacting Intelligent Agents, the researchers demonstrate how individual agents can intuitively align their expectations and coordinate their behaviors, even without explicit communication. In essence, they provide a mathematical recipe for the unspoken emergence of shared goals and collective intelligence from the bottom up. The Role of HSML in Enabling Shared Intelligence But what makes this research truly groundbreaking is its integration with . HSML is a common language that enables seamless interoperability between Active Inference Intelligent Agents, humans, and the scores of devices that comprise the Internet of Things (IoT). By programming context into objects and spaces, HSML provides Active Inference Agents with real-time data about their environments, as well as the sensory inputs from IoT devices and robots. VERSES AI’s Hyperspace Modeling Language (HSML) Embedding Human Values into the Spatial Web The “Shared Protentions” paper lays the theoretical foundation for In other words, it provides a principled way to embed human values and objectives into the very fabric of the Spatial Web, ensuring that the collective intelligences that emerge from it are aligned with our goals and aspirations. translating high-level human directives, encoded in HSML, into the inherent alignments of expectations that guide the cooperative behaviors of Autonomous Intelligent Agents. The Far-Reaching Implications of VERSES AI's Research The implications of this research are staggering. As we move towards a future in which , from Smart Cities to healthcare to scientific research, the ability to create cooperative, context-aware intelligences that can seamlessly coordinate their actions in pursuit of common goals will be essential. The “Shared Protentions” paper, in conjunction with the — & , offers a roadmap for achieving this vision. Autonomous Intelligent Systems are increasingly integrated into every aspect of our lives Spatial Web Protocol HSTP HSML Challenges and Opportunities on the Path to Shared Intelligence Of course, there are still many challenges to be overcome. This robust, secure, and ethical framework, as well as the deployment of . However, the publication of this paper marks a crucial turning point in our understanding of what is possible. these technologies, will require ongoing collaboration between researchers, policymakers, and the broader public Natural Intelligence-A New Era in Artificial Intelligence As we stand at the threshold of a new era in artificial intelligence, the pioneering work of Friston, Albarracin, and their colleagues at and the offers a promising vision of future in which humans and machines can work together in previously unimaginable ways. By cracking the code of shared intelligence and providing the tools to embed the building blocks for it in the very infrastructure of our world, they are laying the foundation for a new paradigm in AI — one that operates with the same mechanics as biological intelligence, and one that could transform our society in ways we are only beginning to imagine. VERSES AI Spatial Web Foundation , and Visit my blog at https://deniseholt.us/ Subscribe to my Spatial Web AI Podcast on , YouTube , and more. Spotify Subscribe to my newsletter on . LinkedIn Also published . here

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