By Stuart Dee
Back in November, I attended the Banking Information Architecture Network (BIAN) London Summit—an incredible platform to engage with IT leaders from the financial sector. These conversations are always insightful, but what struck me this time was a recurring theme: a shared frustration about Enterprise Architecture (EA) tools.
Despite significant investments, many organisations are not reaping the expected business value from these tools. Whether it is due to the tools themselves or how they are being used is a debate for another day.
But what dominated the discussions—unsurprisingly—was Generative AI (GenAI). Everyone is asking the same question: how can we harness GenAI to drive real business outcomes? In today’s IT world, if you’re not talking about GenAI or GPUs, you’re already behind. And while I’m excited about what GenAI is doing now, I’m even more intrigued by the potential of Quantum Computing to take AI to a whole new level once it matures.
Enter the Virtual Architect
We’re on the brink of a new paradigm in Enterprise Architecture—one where architects will have unprecedented access to knowledge, insights, and tools through what I call the Virtual Architect.
The Virtual Architect isn’t limited to financial services. I’ve seen interest across industries like insurance and telecoms, where clients are eager to deploy such solutions. Why? Because it promises to provide accurate, real-time information, support colleagues, and even generate designs. Yes, you read that right—design generation is on the table.
Naturally, this raises a big question: does this mean architects will be replaced? We’ll get to that in a moment.
The Power of Generative AI in Architecture
I’ve already witnessed live demos where open-source financial frameworks—like Open Banking, BIAN, OIDC, and NIST are used to train models capable of generating not just documents, but also visual designs. It’s genuinely impressive. Clients are captivated by the potential to:
- Train models on all organisational architecture data.
- Integrate with tools like SharePoint, CMDB, Jira, Confluence, and risk management systems.
- Support operational resilience and risk management.
The result? Architects can respond to business queries faster, create designs and documents more efficiently, and accelerate time-to-market.
A Game-Changer, Not a Replacement
But here’s the catch: how do we ensure the designs generated by a Virtual Architect are accurate? The old saying applies—it’s only as good as the quality of the data and designs you feed in. That is where ongoing training and validation from architects remain crucial.
So, will the Virtual Architect replace human architects? I don’t believe so, not in the near future. Designing systems is just one aspect of an architect’s role. Stakeholder engagement, strategic thinking, and soft skills are equally important—and these are areas where AI still falls short.
For now, the Virtual Architect is an enhancement, not a replacement. Think of it as a powerful assistant that elevates your role rather than diminishing it. And by the time we see a Virtual Architect mature, we’ll likely be talking about Virtual CTOs too.
If this topic has caught your interest, I’d love to explore it further with you. I can arrange deeper insights and even demos for those curious to see these capabilities in action.
Until then, I wish you a Happy New Year, and I look forward to sharing more thoughts in the next article.