UnionBank Accelerates AI Adoption with Enterprise-Wide Copilot Launch
By: Rachelle Ann Real-Tolentino
October 3, 2025 – UnionBank Plaza, Pasig City Union Bank of the Philippines reinforced its commitment to digital transformation with the launch of U&Ai: Ready, Set, Copilot, a comprehensive initiative designed to enable organization-wide adoption of Microsoft Copilot, the bank’s enterprise-approved generative AI tool.
The full-day event brought together nearly 600 employees across all levels to equip them with the capabilities needed to leverage AI in their daily operations, marking a significant milestone in the bank’s strategy to enhance productivity, innovation, and competitive advantage.
Strategic Leadership Alignment on AI Integration
U&AI was a full-day event for organizers, thoughtfully designed as a two-segment experience to cater to different audiences within the organization. The morning session focused on leaders and executives, while the afternoon was dedicated to non-executive employees, ensuring that discussions and activities were relevant and impactful across all levels.
During the morning icebreaker activity, senior executives showcased how they use Microsoft Copilot in their daily workflows, offering real-world examples of AI integration. This demonstration signaled a top-down cultural shift toward continuous learning and technological innovation, reinforcing leadership’s commitment to embracing AI as a strategic enabler.
During the icebreaker activity, senior executives showcased Copilot’s real-world use in their workflows. This approach signals a top-down cultural shift toward continuous learning and technological innovation.
Caroline Foo, Director and Enterprise Commercial Lead for APAC at Microsoft, addressed critical industry challenges including capacity constraints, cost pressures, and evolving customer expectations. She outlined how strategic AI adoption enables financial institutions to expand workforce capacity, achieve operational efficiencies, and deliver enhanced customer experiences.
Executive Vision: AI as Strategic Enabler
UnionBank President and CEO Ana A. Delgado framed AI adoption as an opportunity to reimagine banking through innovation and transparency. “AI is powerful, but it doesn’t dream, lead, or understand as we do,” Delgado stated. “It gives us back time to focus on what truly matters and make a meaningful impact.”
She encouraged employees to view AI as a complementary tool that amplifies strategic thinking and customer-centric service delivery.
Microsoft Philippines CEO Peter Maquera opened his session with a poem for the attendees, made using Copilot. He demonstrated advanced Copilot functionalities through live demonstrations, showcasing practical applications of plugins and prompt engineering to enhance both tactical productivity and strategic decision-making.
His presentation illustrated how purposeful AI integration can transform routine tasks into opportunities for higher-value work.
UnionBank Vice Chairman Justo A. Ortiz extended his support for the initiative through virtual participation, underscoring board-level commitment to the bank’s AI transformation journey.
Technical Framework and Implementation Roadmap
Vett Watson, Senior Solutions Specialist for AI Empowered Workforces at Microsoft, presented “Microsoft 365 – A Whole New Way to Work,” outlining the three pillars essential for successful Copilot deployment: Leadership Commitment, Change Management, and Technical Infrastructure. She introduced new M365 features and provided a framework for sustainable AI integration.
Sandeep Basu, Director of Azure AI for ASEAN at Microsoft, discussed the transformational potential of Agentic AI in financial services, demonstrating how intelligent automation can optimize customer journeys and create differentiated service experiences.
To bring this concept to life, Microsoft and Dr. Adrienne Heinrich, Head of UnionBank’s AI Center of Excellence, collaborated closely to showcase a reimagined future for chatbot interactions. The demonstration featured a sophisticated UnionBank Avatar powered by the new capabilities of Agentic AI to drive a new level of personalized customer value.
The powerful combination of customer data and conversational context allowed the Avatar to guide the customer towards relevant cross-sell opportunities, effortlessly assist with product applications and refine offers in real-time.
David Rajoo, Senior Solution Engineer at Microsoft Security, addressed critical concerns around trust, compliance, and responsible AI governance. His session on “Security in AI and AI for Security” demonstrated Copilot’s built-in security controls and data protection mechanisms, essential for maintaining regulatory compliance in the financial sector.
Enterprise-Wide Capability Building
The afternoon sessions focused on practical skill development, with nearly 600 employees participating both onsite and virtually. The interactive format encouraged hands-on experience with the platform.
Mik Carpio, Cloud Solution Architect at Microsoft, conducted practical demonstrations covering common business applications—from email composition to data analysis—enabling employees to immediately apply AI capabilities to their roles. Interactive exercises allowed participants to develop and share their own use cases and build their own agents, fostering peer-to-peer learning.
TJ David, Senior Organizational Development Manager at UnionBank, led “Work Reimagined: Powered by U & AI” positioning effective prompt engineering as a critical professional competency.
The session identified high-impact use cases across different functions and demonstrated how strategic prompting enhances efficiency and output quality.
In the final session of the afternoon, Vett Watson of Microsoft gave a deep dive on the existing features of Copilot and how each feature can help streamline day-to-day tasks,boost productivity and enhance employee well-being.
The talks from Mik, TJ, and Vett were well received, sparking valuable insights among participants.
UnionBank Employee Relations and Legal Officer Joey Velasco shared his thoughts about the session, saying, “Copilot is not limited to prompts—it can be customized based on your work needs.”
Collections Agency Officer Joshua Padilla learned about the importance of safeguarding sensitive data when using generative AI, while also discovering how Copilot Agents can simplify some of his repetitive tasks.
UnionBank QA Training Officer Patrick Marcaida also noted how Copilot can be valuable in driving the continuous improvement of agents, prompts, and overall system performance as their team integrates it into their workflow.
Strategic Impact and Next Steps
The U&AI: Ready, Set, Copilot initiative represents a significant investment in human capital development, positioning UnionBank employees at the forefront of AI-enabled banking. By providing enterprise-grade tools combined with comprehensive training, the bank is building organizational capacity to compete effectively in an increasingly technology-driven financial services landscape.
The program addresses the critical gap between AI availability and AI proficiency, ensuring that technological investment translates into measurable business outcomes. As the banking industry faces mounting pressure to innovate while managing costs, UnionBank’s approach demonstrates how strategic AI adoption can serve as both an operational efficiency driver and a competitive differentiator.
UnionBank continues to advance its position as a digitally-enabled financial institution, with AI integration serving as a key pillar of its long-term strategic roadmap of reimagining banking to uplift lives.