Agentic AI for financial services has arrived, but before going all in on the emerging technology, financial institutions have multiple considerations to address — including knowing how to get started.  

More than 80.5% of 3,300 finance and accounting professionals polled said AI-powered tools, like agents and generative AI, could become the standard tools for finance in the next five years, according to a July report from Deloitte. However, just 13.5% of the respondents said their organizations are already using agentic AI.  

While adoption is starting, FIs must have the right technology and governance in place before approaching the tech, Scott Simari, principal at Sendero Consulting, told Bank Automation News. 

4 prerequisites

Simari, who focuses on the financial services sector, has developed a framework for agentic AI adoption including the following prerequisites: 

1. Understanding value of autonomy. Where is true end-to-end autonomy needed. Is agentic AI necessary in the application?  
2. Foundational readiness. Assess the FI’s data posture, is the data structured or unstructured? Would the data support agentic workflows? 
3. Pilots. Identify use cases, offer feedback and expect iterations of the technology. 
4. Governance. Ensure there is a team that is responsible for the governance of the agentic AI.  

If a bank doesn’t have these prerequisites in place, it could be a good opportunity to evaluate the tech stack and invest in it, Simari said. Emerging technology, in this case agentic AI, is “an incredibly powerful reason to maybe finally get that tech class in order so that you can really fully leverage, not only agentic AI, but whatever’s rapidly evolving.” 

FI size affects priorities

While large FIs, including JPMorgan, Mastercard and BNY, are deploying agentic AI and experimenting with the technology, regional banks or smaller institutions have different priorities.  

For regional banks, or even super regional banks, management would have to determine where else capital could be deployed to support the strategic roadmap of the bank, and that might include a long list of things that don’t include AI for now, Simari said. 

Instead of prioritizing building the latest technology, the best decision might be to purchase the capability from vendors like ServiceNow or Saleforce, he said. 

Check out our exclusive new bank industry data here.