EBRD taps Cognizant for five-year partnership on AI-driven technology project – Unite.AI

Cognizant announced on 26 October 2026 that it has been selected by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development as a strategic partner under a five-year framework to support the Bank’s Tech Blueprint technology transformation programme.

The stated goal of the program is efficiency, effectiveness and innovation, pursued through digitally enabled processes powered by artificial intelligence, data and intelligent automation. Cognizant said in the announcement, which carried a dateline in London, that the framework is intended to deliver critical, outcomes-focused technology, while helping the EBRD pursue continuous improvement, innovation and responsible adoption of AI across its technology estate.

Five-year framework and scope of service

Cognizant aims to provide critical technology services through two complementary models: results-oriented managed services and fixed-capacity services. The scope ranges from digital and workplace management, cloud infrastructure, data and security, software engineering, automation and artificial intelligence.

Also built into the framework is a continuous improvement and innovation programme, which the company describes as designed to improve services, strengthen resilience and deliver measurable value over time.

Neuro IT Operations, Flowsource and WorkNEXT

As part of the collaboration, Cognizant plans to bring proprietary AI tools covering service management, software engineering and workplace solutions to the EBRD. Neuro IT Operations aims to offer the Bank better visibility into its technological assets, anticipate and resolve problems more quickly and strengthen the resilience of the service.

Cognizant said Flowsource applies generative and agent AI across the software development lifecycle to accelerate the delivery of high-quality software and provide self-healing and shift-left capabilities. The company’s Flowsource product page describes it as a unified full-stack engineering platform that integrates generative and agent AI at every stage of the lifecycle, with built-in AI co-pilots and agents for task assistance, prompt template libraries, generative documentation, and automated security, quality, and compliance checks. The vendor page reports a 20%–50% increase in full-stack engineer productivity and a 40% reduction in time to market.

WorkNEXT, the company said, will handle workplace management with AI-powered voice and translation services and agent-enabled support orchestration, with the goal of making the experience more intuitive and personalized. Cognizant’s Workplace Digital Services page describes the WorkNEXT suite as a flexible, AI-powered digital fabric for experience-centric services, including a service desk enhanced with generative AI across voice, chat and web channels, workplace intelligence built on real-time experience observability and preventative reliability engineering, and an AI-first model that combines zero-touch and high-touch support.

Expected results and executive statements

Businesses expect the work to strengthen service reliability, expand access to specialist skills, improve operational efficiency and support the continued evolution of the Bank’s technological capabilities.

Subhash Chandra Jose, Managing Director for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer at the EBRD, called the Tech Blueprint the Bank’s strategic roadmap to enhance the technology and capabilities underpinning its mission and transformation and said the Bank needs technology that is secure, adaptable and future-ready. “Our partnership with Cognizant will help us optimize technology, further strengthen our resilience and build innovation capacity at scale,” he said, adding that this will enable the Bank to increase impact for people in the countries where it operates.

Simon Reeves, Chief Technology Officer at the EBRD, said the Tech Blueprint is helping the Bank evolve the way it delivers technology and that strategic partnerships are an important part of this journey. He said the EBRD partnered with Cognizant because of the company’s expertise in managed services, AI-driven delivery and results-oriented approach to work, and that the partnership will accelerate the Bank’s modernization and digitalisation.

Rohit Gupta, managing director of UK&I at Cognizant, said the EBRD operates in a demanding and highly governed environment spanning three continents. He said Cognizant acts as an AI builder, combining industry expertise, expertise in end-to-end systems integration and AI-enabled operational capabilities within a collaborative framework to help the EBRD operate critical technology services with confidence and accelerate the modernization and innovation underlying its mission.

Ownership and mandate of the EBRD

The Bank states on its official overview page that it operates on three continents to support the transition to market economies, combining financing with advice and policy reform, and that its goal is prosperity delivered through a well-managed and sustainable private sector. Ownership rests with 77 national governments, the European Union and the European Investment Bank, and each shareholder is represented on the Board of Governors, the body with overall authority over the Bank. The agreement establishing the Bank was signed in Paris on 29 May 1990.