Banks and insurers are actively moving key customer-facing processes to AI agents, according to new research from the Capgemini Research Institute.

The study, which surveyed 1,100 leaders from financial institutions, found that the top processes for banks to deploy cloud-native, AI agents at scale include customer service (75 per cent), fraud detection (64 per cent), loan processing (61 per cent) and customer onboarding (59 per cent).

In insurance, customer service also came out on top (70 per cent), closely followed by underwriting (68 per cent), claims processing (65 per cent), and onboarding (59 per cent).

While AI agent adoption is set for rapid growth, with 80 per cent of financial services firms in the ideation or pilot stage of deployment, only 10 per cent have implemented the technology at scale.

But c-suite executives are aligning investment to these customer-facing AI tools, with nearly two-in-three leaders indicating that up to 40 per cent of their organisation’s generative AI budget is currently allocated to agent technologies.

By 2028, one-in-four firms expect to increase their spending on AI agent solutions by up to 60 per cent, according to the research.

The research comes as recent data from the Capgemini Research Institute shows that AI agents could deliver up to $450 billion in economic value by 2028.

The organisation said that to capitalise on this opportunity, 33 per cent of banks are developing their own AI agents in-house, while 48 per cent of financial institutions are creating new roles for employees to supervise agents.

Cloud is emerging as a key enabler for AI agents, with 61 per cent of executives now identifying cloud-based orchestration as critical to their AI strategy.

“The combination of AI and cloud allows banks and insurers to tap the power of AI agents to better serve their customers with greater precision, speed and impact,” said Ravi Khokhar, global head of cloud for financial services at Capgemini. “Our data reveals widespread industry optimism that the agentic era will open doors to new markets, signalling a new phase of transformation is upon us.

"To realise this potential, financial institutions must take a long-term view as humans work alongside agents. This means separating substance from hype. Leaders will need to consider how they can scale their agentic AI operation overtime, with a vision of what they want their businesses to look like at the end of this process.”

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