The banking industry is on the cusp of a significant transformation, driven by the rapid adoption of agentic AI. You’re likely wondering what exactly is agentic AI, and how is it poised to revolutionize the banking sector? Agentic AI has the potential to fundamentally reshape how work gets done, how decisions are made, and how value is delivered at scale.
What is Agentic AI?
Agentic AI is a type of artificial intelligence that enables banks to run not only deterministic workflows but also analysis and tasks that are less structured, more personalized, and that effectively happen only once. This technology has the potential to transform banking operations, allowing you to move beyond pilots and rewire how work, decisions, and delivery happen from end to end.
Improving Customer Experiences
Agentic AI assistants can integrate deeply into core systems, understand identity and consent policies, and provide end-to-end workflow orchestration that delivers more positive outcomes. Traditional chatbots are often limited to answering questions, but agentic AI assistants can support multi-step workflows, operate within defined policies, and assist customers in a single, intelligent pane of access.
Overcoming Challenges
One of the biggest hurdles is moving beyond pilot purgatory, where banks dabble in narrow use cases without fully realizing the transformative potential of this technology. You need to focus on real-world use cases and prioritize the development of robust foundations for consent, governance, compliance, and identity. Some institutions are pulling ahead, while others are stuck in pilot purgatory.
Real-World Use Cases
- Underwriting: Companies like Kensho Technologies are already applying AI to underwriting.
- Identity Verification: Enova is using AI for identity verification.
- Automated Trading: Scienaptic AI is applying AI to automated trading.
- Personalized Customer Experiences: Socure is using AI for personalized customer experiences.
The Future of Banking
As the adoption of agentic AI continues to grow, it’s clear that the banking industry will never be the same. The numbers are compelling: between 50 and 60 percent of full-time equivalents are tied to operations, and AI has the potential to significantly impact how tasks and services are delivered to customers. With the right approach, agentic AI has the potential to transform the banking industry, delivering more efficient, effective, and customer-centric experiences.
Key to Success
The key to success will be to focus on real-world use cases and to prioritize the development of robust foundations for consent, governance, compliance, and identity. You’ll need to commit to delivering better customer experiences. The rapid adoption of broad-scale agentic AI solutions in banking is the product of the convergence of some powerful trends: AI-native experiences have reset customer expectations, industry competition is intensifying, secure orchestration is now achievable, and models can now execute multi-step tasks.
