Financial institutions are increasingly deploying AI and the latest driver of returns on that investment is agentic AI. 

Seventy-seven percent of financial service executives report their organizations have achieved positive ROI within the first year of deployment, according to Google Cloud’s “The ROI of AI: Financial Services” report. The findings, released Sept. 29, are based on a survey of 556 global financial services leaders conducted from April 18 to June 3. 

Driving that ROI are AI agents, according to the report. Financial services companies are using AI agents for: 

• Customer service; 

• Marketing; 

• Security; 

• Finance and accounting; 

• Fraud management; and 

• Risk management. 

With uses identified, more interest and investment in agentic AI is expected. 

Nearly half of survey respondents reported their organizations plan to allocate 50% or more of their AI budgets toward AI agents, according to the report. 

Emerging agents

As FIs adopted agents for internal processes, deployment for shopping, e-commerce and other transactions also emerged. 

Read more: 81% of consumers open to using agentic AI for payments 

Mastercard, for one, rolled out in April its Agent Pay tool, which integrates agentic AI into its payments infrastructure, Seema Chibber, executive vice president of core payments at Mastercard North America, previously told Bank Automation News. 

Responsible deployment

As FIs enable emerging agentic payment capabilities, caution is necessary. 

“There is a lot of risk in the innovation,” Quentin Rhoads-Herrera, VP of security services at cybersecurity services company Stratascale, told BAN. Two immediate risks to consider: Authorization and liability.  

To keep up with adoption and ensure a clear path forward for deployment, on Sept. 16 Google Cloud announced its Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), Blair Sammons, director of solutions at IT consulting service Promevo, told BAN. 

A2P is a collaboration between Google Cloud and financial services and technology company participants that came together to develop a common way to support agentic payments, according to Google Cloud. 

According to Google, AP2 offers: 

• Authorization; 

• Authenticity; and 

• Accountability. 

“I think AP2 … from the agentic lens, is the way to do it right,” Sammons said. 

Check out our exclusive new bank industry data here.