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A new wave of AI is poised to reshape the banking industry, according to research released by SoundHound AI. The study, conducted by Arizent, reveals that 70% of U.S. banking executives believe agentic AI will have a "significant" impact or be a "game changer" for financial services. While a large majority (71%) acknowledge the necessity of investing in AI agents to remain competitive, the path to adoption is nuanced, with over half (54%) of professionals calling for stronger regulatory guidance to proceed with confidence.
70% of US banking executives believe agentic AI will be a "game changer" or have "significant" impact.
71% say they must invest in AI agents to remain competitive.
A divide exists: 64% of large banks are testing/deploying AI vs. 38% of smaller institutions.
Top use cases are Customer Service (59%), Employee Efficiency (39%), and Fraud Management (37%).
Main adoption barriers are security/compliance (51%) and system integration (46%).
54% want stronger regulatory guidance to facilitate adoption.
The research highlights a significant gap in agentic AI adoption based on the size of the financial institution. Larger banks are leading the charge, with more than three in five (64%) currently testing or actively deploying the technology. In contrast, smaller institutions are significantly less likely to be doing so (38%). The data also suggests that hands-on experience builds confidence; institutions already deploying agentic AI were almost four times more likely to view it as a "game-changer," with 94% expressing satisfaction with their deployments.
For banking professionals, the application of agentic AI is focused on enhancing both customer and employee experiences. The top-priority use case is Customer Service and Call Center operations (59%), followed by boosting Employee Efficiency (39%) and improving Fraud and Risk Management (37%). Overall, 73% of respondents believe agentic AI will improve the customer experience, and 79% state it will improve the employee experience, indicating a strong belief that the technology will augment the human element of banking.
Despite clear enthusiasm, banks are navigating a careful path to adoption, weighed down by legitimate concerns. The top barriers are Security and Compliance (51%), Concerns about Autonomy (51%), and Integration with Legacy Systems (46%). Interestingly, many see the technology as part of the solution, with 42ľlieving it could benefit fraud automation and nearly a third seeing potential for compliance assistance. To move forward, over half of professionals said stronger regulatory guidance (54%) and seamless integration with existing tools (53%) would make their institutions more likely to adopt agentic AI.
The research included a demonstration of SoundHound’s Amelia 7 agentic AI platform, which garnered a highly positive response. After viewing the demo, 88% of respondents said the technology would be valuable to their business, and 98ľlieved it represented an improvement over their current technology deployments. This suggests that demonstrating tangible, secure solutions is key to accelerating industry-wide adoption.
SoundHound AI, a global leader in voice and conversational AI, delivers solutions that allow businesses to offer superior experiences to their customers. Built on proprietary technology, SoundHound’s voice AI delivers best-in-class speed and accuracy in numerous languages to product creators and service providers across retail, financial services, healthcare, automotive, smart devices, and restaurants. The company’s various groundbreaking AI-driven products include Smart Answering, Smart Ordering, Dynamic Drive-Thru, and the Amelia Platform, which powers AI Agents for enterprise. In addition, SoundHound Chat AI, a powerful voice assistant with integrated Generative AI, and Autonomics, a category-leading operations platform that automates IT processes, have enabled SoundHound to power millions of products and services, and process billions of interactions each year for world class businesses.
