In this live‑streamed episode of the Connector Podcast recorded at Nordic FinTech Week in Copenhagen, host Koen Vanderhoydonk interviews Clemens Schachter, a senior partner and global technology lead at McKinsey and an AI specialist. The conversation explores how AI is re‑introducing lean principles into large software and financial organisations, fundamentally reshaping agile sprint cycles by enabling much shorter ideation‑to‑implementation loops. They discuss the role of generative AI—particularly new voice models from OpenAI—as a human‑technology interface that will change customer communication. Schachter highlights the emergence of AI agents that can analyse decades‑old legacy code, extract business logic, data models and regulatory intent, and translate them into modern code or documentation, a capability that was unheard of a year ago. The dialogue turns to regulation, with both guests agreeing that the European AI Act will be a key driver of responsible AI adoption in finance, and they reference Mario Draghi’s recent remarks on over‑regulation. Looking ahead, they outline four possible AI futures: (1) status‑quo adoption, (2) linear capability growth, (3) accelerating growth, and (4) a “computer‑is‑God” singularity scenario, placing themselves in the second or third. They envision long‑term contextual AI models that retain a user’s financial, health, and educational history to provide personalized advice—something not possible today. The episode closes with reflections on the energy of the FinTech community and a call for listeners to connect with Schachter via LinkedIn.
Chapters
Welcome to the Connector Podcast, an ongoing conversation connecting fintechs, banks, and regulators worldwide. Join CEO and founder Koen Vanderhoydonk as you learn more about the latest available trends and solutions in the markets.
Welcome to another podcast, and today we're streaming live from the Nordic Fintech Week here in Copenhagen, and I've got with me Clemens, you're a speaker, you work at McKinsey, so I guess you don't need to explain what McKinsey is about, but maybe could you give a little bit background? Who are you?
Yes, so Clemens Schachter, Senior Partner. I lead technology globally in McKinsey across all sectors. And yeah, I live in Copenhagen but travel around the world as many of my colleagues.
I can imagine. And I was told that you're an AI specialist. And before we even started this conversation, we sort of had some common background because I did a lot of lean implementation in the past. And you made a very interesting statement, which I would like to repeat and like to hear what you want to say about that, is that what happens in AI, there's a lot of lean methodology that's coming back. What does that mean?
So it means it is something that we see in particular in large development and software organizations, that the tools for improvement are already there, but the human adoption is actually kind of the difficult thing. And if you want to transform a product creation process from idea to impact, It starts in the ideation, goes into product, it goes into road mapping, it goes into product specification, it goes into user stories, it goes into defining the test cases, it goes into defining the data model. All of these things can we use AI for and are already doing, but it's a very, very big change. And to roll that out to thousands and thousands of people in a responsible way in regulated financial institutions, the change effort is actually quite significant. And what we see is that it fundamentally changes the sprint-based approach in agile software development. We are seeing that the The two-week sprints, the nature of those are actually changing. We are seeing that we can work in much, much shorter cycles. We can ideate and instantly get implications on architecture and data and regulatory documentation. And this means that we are looking at significant change for a very long chain and for thousands and thousands of people. And to best roll that out in large organizations, obviously technology takes care of some of it, but it's a real human adoption process. And there our old common background in lean comes together because it's all about you. Because it's a very, very effective way of working with people and change.
No, I totally agree. Now, to bring something in the mix that I cannot not bring in the mix if we have a conversation about AI, it's about generative AI. It's the fact that now we are able to speak against AI. Do you see that generative AI would then have an important role to make that bridge between technology and human adoption?
I think it has a, I mean, significant potential and just significant change on our lives. And we are seeing new innovations hitting us every week, every month. And the implications are going to be very, very wide. And all of those changes ultimately comes to human change. But it comes down to the interface, for example. I mean, just as we're speaking right now, the new voice model from OpenAI was launched, obviously in the US, Europe a little bit later because of our own regulation. But this is going to have significant impacts on how we communicate with customers and how we communicate with With these capabilities.
It's the whole debate about AI agents, but I think indeed they're very much in their infancy state. But I almost challenge everyone to try it out because you would be amazed how good they can be.
So, so the agent approach is, is no longer theory. I mean, we are seeing this at scale in large institutions. We are seeing, I mean, kind of my favorite use case is, for example, in legacy software code bases that have fundamentally not really been moved for now 20, 30 years. And we're actually seeing organizations of agents that are able to break down the business understanding The procedures, the data model, the regulation, the intent of why these systems were created, using agents to translate all of that to English, and then either kind of create new code bases or use it in the transformation going forward. And this is something that frankly, a year ago—
Was not on the agenda yet.
I mean, it wasn't really even Thought of, I would say.
It's going extremely fast. And then if you think about the speed that we make, you already mentioned the difference between nations, the approach that Europe takes versus the US or Asia or anywhere else. What's your take on the European AI Act?
I think regulation is going to be a key player in how—
I do agree.
This will be adopted, especially in regulated industries as finance. but frankly wider in society. I listened to Mario Draghi when he presented his report on Europe.
It was kind of devastating.
2 weeks ago.
I read it too.
And he has a good take on some of the overregulation that we're also seeing. So I would encourage the listeners to actually spend a few minutes and see what he said. You can also see that the main gap in productivity that is happening between Europe and US is actually happening in the technology sector. It's the technology sector and the productivity that is happening there that is the main driving force. And we see it happen at a very, very fast pace right now. And so getting technology right, both creating technology but also use of technology in our institutions, is probably the key factor in closing the gap. And then there's all of the other things around consolidation and general productivity, but if you had to look at One place, it is probably technology.
And then to go back on the regulatory part, my personal belief is that you need regulation to have something move in the right direction. I think regulation is very often the driver for adoption more general in the financial industry. Would you agree with that statement?
I completely agree.
Because a lot of people say that the regulator is hindering us, but it's actually, in my opinion, the opposite. If you look ahead in terms of AI, because you said it yourself, you traveled the world, you see a lot of use cases, what can we expect in the next 1 year to come and the next 5 years to come? And I deliberately say 1 and 5 because it goes so fast.
So if the truth is we don't really know what scenarios are in front of us, the first scenario is that this is pretty much it. So we'll be adopting the technologies and the innovations that we've already kind of seen, and we have 10 years of adoption in front of us. Second scenario is that we'll see a linear progression of the capabilities. Third scenario is that we'll see an accelerating progression of capabilities. And the fourth scenario is like—
Singularity.
Computer is God kind of scenario. And we are probably somewhere in scenario 2 or 3. I don't believe in scenario 1, that this is it. So we're probably either in scenario 2 or scenario 3. And this is going to mean fundamental, profound change. We all can feel how much technology has changed our lives the last 15 years.
Absolutely.
I mean, it's a completely different way we behave in our families, how we discuss politics, how everything is being done. And this is going to be more profound. And we have a clear sight to, for example, kind of financial advice. That we will have models that can take your full financial context and life into a context window that will hold memory throughout years, that will be very, very compelling to interact with, and will be able to translate some of the insight to actions. This is not possible today. And this is capability that's going to come to finance, it's going to come to health, it's going to come to education. And it will have to be pretty, pretty profound. So we better get it right.
No, no, I agree. And on the plane coming to Copenhagen, I was looking at the Netflix series. It's interesting about Bill Gates. And he's sort of looking ahead on AI. And his statement was that a lot of people look at from a negative point of view, but you could also see it world education. If everyone have an individual tutor to learn new stuff because of AI, we could get also a lot smarter in what we do. So super interesting conversation here. Maybe one last question because time flies when you're having fun. What brought you here to the FinTech Week, apart from the fact that you were invited as a speaker, of course?
So it's always around meeting people. I get the energy from seeing the entrepreneurs that are pushing their solutions, the institutions that are scouting for new possibilities. And energy is where people meet. And at the end of the day, this sector is so exciting. That's what keeps bringing me back.
Yeah. And if people want to talk to you, get in contact, how would they do that?
Hit me up on LinkedIn. It's most important.
Perfect.
Good. Thank you so much for joining this podcast. I hope you have a wonderful day here in Copenhagen. Thank you also to the audience and stay tuned for more fintech news in this podcast. Thank you very much.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the Connector Podcast. To connect and keep up to date with all the latest, Head over to www.jointheconnector.com. Or hit subscribe via your podcast streaming platform.
