- 3 out of 5 banks and insurance companies cite customer onboarding as the primary reason for hiring AI agents
- 33% of companies are actively developing their own AI agents in-house, but only 10% are deploying them at scale
- Almost half of banks and insurance companies are creating new jobs to supervise AI agents
– Financial institutions are actively moving key customer-facing processes to AI agents, rapidly changing the way customers interact with banks and insurance companies. According to Capgemini Institute’s World Cloud in Financial Services Report 2026, the key processes for banks to deploy cloud-native AI agents at scale include customer service (75%), fraud detection (64%), loan processing (61%), and customer onboarding (59%). Insurers are exhibiting a similar pattern, with customer service leading the way (70%), followed by underwriting (68%), claims processing (65%) and onboarding (59%), with an overall redefinition of what it means to be a financial services customer.
Recent data from Capgemini Institute shows that AI agents can deliver up to $450 billion[1] This shows that opportunities exist in the financial services industry. To take advantage of this opportunity, 33% of banks say they are developing their own AI agents in-house, and 48% of financial institutions say they are creating new roles for employees to oversee agents.
With AI agents able to autonomously manage complex workflows, the role of the cloud is changing beyond just infrastructure and storage provider. Nearly two in three executives (61%) now recognize that cloud-based orchestration is critical to their AI strategy, turning cloud platforms into innovation engines that can operate technology at speed and scale.
“By combining AI and the cloud, banks and insurance companies can harness the power of AI agents to serve their customers with greater accuracy, speed, and impact.” Ravi Khokhar, Global Head of Financial Services Cloud at Capgemini, said: “Our data shows widespread industry optimism that the agent era is opening the door to new markets and that a new phase of transformation is on the horizon.To realize this potential, financial institutions must take a long-term view of humans working alongside agents. This means separating reality from hype. Leaders need to have a vision of what their business will look like at the end of this process and consider how they can scale their agent AI operations.”
Only 10% of companies deploy AI agents at scale
With 80% of financial services companies in the concept or pilot stage of deployment, AI agent deployment is poised to grow rapidly. However, with only 10% of companies surveyed deploying AI agents at scale, a huge opportunity is yet to be unlocked.
According to the report, banking and insurance executives identified customer onboarding and “know your customer” (KYC), loan and claims processing, and insurance underwriting as the most inefficient operational functions across the sector. Businesses are optimistic that agent AI can address these long-standing challenges, citing real-time decision-making (96%), increased accuracy (91%), and faster delivery times (89%) as key benefits.
Beyond efficiency, executives believe that AI agents can deliver real business outcomes.
- 92% say AI agents will help them expand into new geographies without large upfront infrastructure
- 79% believe cloud-native AI agents can leverage dynamic pricing and offers to maximize revenue and outperform competitors.
- 75% believe there is an opportunity to provide multilingual support that adapts to local regulations and cultural norms
Executives are adjusting their investments accordingly, as they have great potential to double the power of the entire company. Nearly two in three leaders say up to 40% of their organization’s generative AI budget is currently allocated specifically to agent technology. By 2028, one in four companies expects to increase spending on AI agent solutions by up to 60%.
Banks face lingering challenges to implementation
As financial institutions ramp up their deployment of generative AI and AI agents, nearly every executive team agrees on two significant obstacles. These are the pressing skills gap between business leaders and employees (92%) and the regulatory and compliance burden (96%). While expressing concerns about the complexity of managing region-specific regulatory obligations, most executives (89%) also place compliance at the top of their organization’s priorities over the next three years.
High implementation costs are also a barrier to realizing substantial returns from AI investments. More companies (25%) are leaning towards Service-as-a-Software[2] Over the next 12 to 18 months, we will build models and fine-tune new approaches to how we use and monetize AI. Rather than paying for licenses or infrastructure, companies pay for outcomes such as resolving fraud cases, processing transactions, and handling customer inquiries.
Read the full report: From process automation to reimagining the industry
At Capgemini, we use AI, technology and people to make it happen. With nearly 60 years of strong heritage, we are a responsible and diverse group of 420,000 team members in more than 50 countries. We leverage our capabilities across strategy, technology, design, engineering and business operations, and leverage deep industry expertise and a strong partner ecosystem to deliver end-to-end services and solutions. The group reported global sales of 22.1 billion euros in 2024.
