Azhar Said, chief data officer at Capitec
The era of artificial intelligence is not merely a technological trend but a fundamental shift in the economics of decision-making, where the cost of intelligence is plummeting while the value of human reasoning is reaching an all-time high.
Speaking at the ITWeb AI Summit in Johannesburg on Tuesday, Azhar Said, chief data officer at Capitec, outlined how the bank is moving beyond generative AI hype towards “decision intelligence” – a discipline focused on reshaping enterprise workflows through agentic AI and data-driven orchestration.
Said opened with a case study of a long-term client who, despite years of financial activity, lacked a traditional credit record. Under legacy banking models, such a client would be invisible or rejected by default.
“We see 80 months of cashflow moving through her account; we understand the consistency of her income and how she manages her money,” Said explained. “Our system made a clear decision tailored for her based on her reality, not on assumptions. That decision took 320 milliseconds.”
This speed, however, is not the primary objective. Said argued that true value lies in AI’s ability to process millions of scenarios almost instantaneously, making intelligence “cheap” and allowing organisations to respond to client needs in real-time.
A significant portion of the discussion centred on the flaws of human judgment. Referencing Daniel Kahneman’s book “Noise”, Said noted that human decisions are often plagued by unwanted variability, where different experts reach different conclusions based on the same data.
By deploying algorithmic decision-making, Capitec aims to counterbalance this human noise. Algorithms do not get tired, do not have bad days, and remain unaffected by the most recent fraud case they have encountered.
To illustrate the practical application, Said pointed to Pulse, Capitec’s AI-powered contact centre tool. While the tool significantly reduces call handling times, Said insisted that efficiency is merely a byproduct.
“Pulse is about a client who is frustrated, confused or worried,” he said. “It ensures that the person on the other end has full context and understands the situation before the individual even speaks. The outcome is human.”
As Capitec scales its 347 intelligence campaign systems, the focus remains on proactive protection. In fraud prevention, AI identifies emerging patterns for human review, ensuring that while the AI handles the volume, the “human in the loop” retains final, high-stakes judgment.
The shift towards agentic AI represents a move from reactive to proactive banking. By leveraging decision intelligence, Capitec is attempting to build a fairer, more inclusive financial ecosystem where “thin-file” clients are no longer left in the dark.
Said’s message was clear: in a world where intelligence is becoming a commodity, the ability to apply human reasoning and empathy to its outputs is the new competitive frontier.
