Employee Stories
Jingyuan Sun
Meet Jingyuan: Putting humans at the centre of AI
Jingyuan is an AI Chapter Lead at Standard Chartered, responsible for designing and delivering AI‑enabled knowledge management and Conversational Banking solutions across the Bank’s contact centre, online and mobile banking, and private banking within Wealth & Retail Banking.
“We need AI to help improve our daily work and enhance the client experience. As a Chapter Lead of a financial institution, I also feel a responsibility to introduce AI in a balanced way, so people can benefit from the convenience while still feeling secure and protected when using AI-powered services.” she explains.
Before joining the Bank in August 2025, she worked across data analytics, digital transformation and AI product design and delivery roles in a range of industries, especially financial institutions. Over the years, she’s seen multiple waves of enterprise AI adoption – from big data and machine learning, to deep learning, NLP and now GenAI and large language models – and the impact they can have on retail financial services. “Customers’ experience is uplifted when we use AI well. It improves the quality and efficiency of services in a very tangible way.” she says.
AI as a Co‑Pilot, not a replacement
In her current role, AI acts as a thinking partner. Recently, Jingyuan had to choose between two solution designs. “Both options had pros and cons,” she says. “I needed a structured way to compare them, and I wanted to do it efficiently.”
She turned to a large language model. “I prompted the model with our requirements and constraints, and asked it to compare the designs using the metrics and definitions that I provided,” she explains. “I even gave examples of the input and output structure I wanted.”
“The model did an excellent job of consolidating and summarising the information.” she says. “It helped me finish the draft much faster.” But the critical steps remained human. “I raised the request, defined the structure, and guided the refinement through several rounds. Finally, I made the decision to accept the draft and did the rest on my own. AI supported the process, but it didn’t replace my judgement.”
For Jingyuan, these experiences underline a core principle: “AI can suggest, but we must validate. AI can support, but we must decide. That’s how we keep human judgement in control.”
AI in the background: Complementing our work
Another example comes from her work on the customer facing Conversational Banking platform. “I was asked to make it respond faster – from around 10 seconds down to under 5.” she says.
At first, it sounded simple. But the Conversational Banking tool is not just one AI model. It’s a chain of connected systems: tools that retrieve information, systems that search it, AI that drafts the response, and services that deliver it to the client. If any step is slow, the whole experience is slow.
“I worked with teams across the Bank to review the whole chain and find the delays,” she explains. “We improved how information is stored and searched, adding smart shortcuts so common questions could be answered more quickly. After testing, we moved the improvements into production.”
Now the bot responds in under 5 seconds on average.
For me, this shows how AI at Standard Chartered works, connecting our systems and our teams so we can give customers a smoother, better experience
Jingyuan SunAI Chapter Lead, Standard Chartered
From sceptical to confident with Gen AI
A key turning point in Jingyuan’s confidence in generative AI came in early 2025, when LLM chatbots started to provide references and reasoning behind their answers. “Before that, we only saw the answer itself” she explains. “If something was wrong, we didn’t know where the ‘thinking process’ went off track, so it was hard for humans to jump in and intervene.” Especially in financial sector, every step needs to be explainable and traceable.
With the new reasoning capabilities, her confidence grew significantly. “Suddenly, I could better validate the output and fine-tuneanswers in a more constructive way,” she says. “I could see where the logic started to drift. That transparency made me much more confident using AI in my work.”
Learning AI on the job: A continuous journey
Despite her experience, Jingyuan is clear that working with AI remains a constant learning journey. “New technology keeps emerging” she says. “As an AI professional on the industrial application side, it’s challenging. We not only need to understand how these technologies work, but also how they can be applied to real business challenges – and what benefits and risks they might bring.”
She keeps pace through self‑driven learning and collaboration. “I keep up-to-date with the market – reading new essays, following tech news, feeds and podcasts” she explains. “I speak to industry peers to understand how different organisations are using AI and where the limitations of certain solutions lie. When needed, we run internal experiments using real business test data to evaluate how we use a new technology or even just a new model strategy.”
“This AI journey is a continuous learning process” she reflects. “It helps me develop my own skills, while also giving me the opportunity to apply new technologies to real business challenges. Seeing that impact is incredibly rewarding.”
Stay connected to what’s next
Through Jingyuan’s story, you can see what it’s like to build a career in AI at Standard Chartered. AI supports our people, but human judgement remains at the centre of every decision. It’s an environment where curiosity, continuous learning and real-world problem solving help our teams grown and make a meaningful impact.
Interested in being part of that journey? Explore our latest opportunities and explore where a career at Standard Chartered could take you.