GenAI has rocketed from moonshot to reality. To flesh out the reality in the financial services industry, Celent surveyed executives in roles tied to innovation. A majority of firms are implementing or testing use cases in risk and compliance functions. Insurers and banks are leading the way, while a substantial subset of capital markets and wealth management firms also have projects in play.

Celent recently asked financial institutions about their state of GenAI adoption in risk and compliance, their view of expected impact by use case, their technology approach and the key success factors they have identified through their recent experience. Survey participants tended to be innovation frontrunners and indeed a majority of respondents are actively implementing or testing use cases in risk and compliance functions. Insurers and banks are leading the way, while a substantial subset of capital markets and wealth management firms also have projects in play.

Fraud detection and prevention tops the list of functions where FIs are most active, followed by operational risk and enterprise risk and regulatory change management and reporting. Financial firms area also exploring the use of GenAI to support financial risk decisions. Eventually, GenAI will play a significant role in risk functions aimed at supporting corporate growth and stability.