Banks leveraging AI are poised to realize game changing differentiation. Over the past three years, AI in corporate banking has moved from experiments to production and from the middle and back-office to the front office. Based on several Celent surveys and bank, fintech, and AI tech vendor interviews, Celent estimates that corporate banking has moved from the vanguard phase to the early adopter phase.
The game is on. A striking 86% of respondents to Celent’s AI in Action survey (April 2021) state that AI is very to extremely important to competitive differentiation. 14% have greater than 10 AI projects underway in the Treasury Trade Services line of business
AI initiatives have moved to the front office, driving new customer engagment and employee enablement models. Investment in customer-facing intelligent virtual agents, predictive, and prescriptive analytics tops the charts. Turbo-charging front office staff with client analytics is a strong focus.
Realizing game changing competitive differentiation, however, is a long term, challenging journey. Success rests upon a number of soft and hard factors. An effective, collaborative organizational dynamic, including employee buy-in, is paramount. Mastering the 4 Cs of data (capture, clean, cache, and call) is an ongoing exercise in commitment and perseverance.
This report summarizes the findings from Celent’s AI in Action survey (April 2021), recent bank, fintech, and AI tech vendor interviews, and Celent’s AI in the UI Benchmarking Survey of AI tech vendors 2018.
