AI is reshaping how financial institutions operate, compete, and deliver value. Learn some of the areas in banking where predictive and generative AI are creating the most value and where to start.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a future-facing technology — it’s a present-day differentiator. Across banking, AI is reshaping how financial institutions operate, compete, and deliver value. From marketing to compliance, the most promising AI use cases in banking help organizations improve decision-making, reduce operational risk, and grow more efficiently. This article explores a sample of opportunities where AI creates the most value today by showing major areas of banking where artificial intelligence (either predictive or generative) can be useful. It also explains how financial institutions can safely begin or accelerate their AI journey and identify applications for the technology in their own banks or credit unions.
There are two primary forms of AI driving transformation: predictive AI, which forecasts outcomes and detects patterns, and generative AI, which creates new content from existing data sources.
The graphic below illustrates dozens of current AI applications across the banking lifecycle.
Current applications of artificial intelligence across banking fall into six core areas of opportunity, described below along with examples of how financial institutions are already benefitting from AI on these fronts:
AI enables personalized engagement and smarter targeting for bank and credit unions’ marketing and sales.
Personalizing content on JPMorgan’s mobile phone apps helped increase engagement rates by 25%, the company said during its May Investor Day.
AI can reduce friction in early-stage customer interactions for banking services.
Costs to verify investment bank clients are down 40% where AI is being deployed across the workflow, JPMorgan also said.
AI enhances accuracy and speed in credit decisions, helping lenders make good decisions quickly.
Bankers Trust, a $7 billion community bank, reduced its commercial loan process for certain loans from two weeks to three to five days using Abrigo’s loan origination for smaller commercial loans, which automates decisioning and features AI-powered loan scoring. And Abrigo’s Loan Review Assistant allows credit risk review staff to evaluate credit quality and document insights in minutes rather than days.
Financial institutions can improve back-office efficiency with AI automation.
NVIDIA’s latest survey of financial institutions’ use of AI found that more than 60% of respondents credited AI with helping reduce annual costs by 5% or more.
With artificial intelligence, financial institutions boost service quality while scaling support teams.
Bank of America’s AI-driven virtual assistant for employees, Erica for Employees, reduced calls into the IT service desk by more than 50%, the bank said. Similar support improvements can benefit clients.
Both predictive AI and generative AI enable institutions to meet regulatory demands with precision and agility.
Texas National Bank uses Abrigo’s AI-driven check fraud detection to identify fraudulent checks before they are cashed. Within just two months, the bank identified and prevented over $377,000 in fraudulent check transactions.
Altogether, these banking AI use cases drive measurable business benefits: faster loan decisions, higher operational efficiency, improved accuracy, and reduced churn.
The range of available AI use cases in banking can feel overwhelming. But successful institutions typically begin with focused, high-impact projects that align with their data readiness and staffing capacity.
To start:
Long-term AI success requires thoughtful governance, clean data inputs, and strategic planning. With the right use cases and the right partners, banks and credit unions can unlock the true value of AI: accelerating growth, reducing risk, and improving every interaction.
Abrigo enables U.S. financial institutions to support their communities through technology that fights financial crime, grows loans and deposits, and optimizes risk. Abrigo's platform centralizes the institution's data, creates a digital user experience, ensures compliance, and delivers efficiency for scale and profitable growth.
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