M&T Bank VP: using AI to speed routine engineering, not governance
Prasanna Kumar Kandregula is Senior Software Engineer/Vice president at M&T bank, focusing on payments, finance systems, enterprise software modernization and AI governance. He uses AI to accelerate research, documentation and code reviews while keeping architecture, risk and compliance decisions under human control, showing how large financial institutions are balancing efficiency and accountability.
Use AI to accelerate routine engineering tasks so senior engineers can focus on architecture and business outcomes. Keep governance, security and compliance as human responsibilities rather than delegating those decisions to models.
What’s the quick origin story of your business, and what makes what you do genuinely different from the other options your customers are looking at?
Throughout my career, I’ve focused on solving complex technology challenges for financial institutions and enterprise organizations. My experience spans payment processing, finance systems, Insurance, Invetsments enterprise software modernization, and AI governance. What sets my work apart is that I approach AI and digital transformation from both a business and engineering perspective. Rather than adopting technology because it’s new, I focus on building secure, reliable, and scalable solutions that improve operational efficiency while maintaining customer trust and regulatory compliance.
Where does most of your new business come from today, and where do you wish it came from?
Most of the opportunities I receive today come from the people I’ve worked with throughout my career. Enterprise technology is a relationship-driven field, and trust built over years of delivering successful projects is still the strongest source of new opportunities.As I continue to build my thought leadership, I’d like more opportunities to come from my published research, media contributions, keynote speaking, and organizations looking for practical expertise in AI governance, financial technology, cybersecurity, and enterprise software modernization.
What’s one thing you’ve actually handed over to AI in the last year, and one thing you tried it on and went back to doing the human way?
AI has become a valuable assistant for research, documentation, code reviews, brainstorming, and generating initial technical drafts. It helps accelerate routine tasks so I can spend more time on architecture, design decisions, and solving complex business problems.
What I haven’t delegated to AI is enterprise architecture and governance decisions. Designing secure financial systems, evaluating risk, reviewing compliance requirements, and making decisions that affect customers still require human judgment, experience, and accountability. AI is an accelerator not a replacement for engineering responsibility.
Have you noticed a change in how customers find you or what they already know before they reach out? Is anyone arriving through AI assistants like ChatGPT yet?
Absolutely. People are much better informed before the first conversation. They often use AI tools to research technologies, compare architectural approaches, or understand implementation options before speaking with an expert. That has shifted discussions from explaining basic concepts to focusing on strategy, governance, implementation challenges, and business outcomes. I expect AI assistants to become another important channel for professional discovery over the next few years.
If you were advising someone in your industry on all of this for the next 12 months, what would you tell them to actually do, and what would you tell them to ignore?
I’d tell them to invest time in understanding AI governance, cybersecurity, data quality, and enterprise architecture not just the latest AI models. Organizations that succeed with AI are solving real business problems, integrating AI into existing workflows, and building trust through security and transparency.
I’d also encourage them to keep learning and experimenting with AI while maintaining strong engineering fundamentals.
What I’d ignore is the pressure to adopt every new AI tool simply because it’s trending. Technology changes quickly, but sound architecture, secure software development, and delivering measurable business value remain the foundations of successful enterprise systems.
Thank you to Prasanna Kumar Kandregula and the team at M&T bank for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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