2026 AI and Digital Trends in Financial Services

The Path to AI-Powered Customer Experiences for Financial Services

Explore the top industry insights from Adobe’s 2026 AI and Digital Trends research to understand the actions organizations must take now to turn AI-powered opportunities into trusted, personalized experiences at every stage of the client journey.

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How Financial Services Firms Are Connecting AI to Customer Experience

The financial services industry is moving fast on AI. Two-thirds of firms say AI routinely automates processes across teams, and the industry outpaces others in deploying agentic AI in key customer-facing workflows. Despite this momentum, most organizations still lack the infrastructure needed to turn individual AI wins into orchestrated, end-to-end experiences. To unlock the next phase of value, firms must shift their focus from isolated deployments to enterprise-wide coordination.

This overview explores the Adobe 2026 AI and Digital Trends findings across three critical areas for financial services organizations: envisioning an agentic future, building the foundation for scalable AI, and aligning customer trust with real-world applications.

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Envisioning an Agentic Future

The financial services industry is further along the AI maturity curve than other industries in deploying AI where customers actually interact with it. But to maximize enterprise value, firms need to connect their agentic AI workflows end to end — from front office to back office — allowing the technology to compound impact across the entire organization.

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The industry is actively automating workflows and has ambitious plans for agentic AI.

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say their processes are routinely automated by AI.
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In the next 18 months, organizations expect to have the following agentic AI capabilities:

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Donut chart showing that over the next 18 months FSI organizations expect to use agentic AI for assisting marketing with campaign orchestration 61% Assisting marketing with campaign orchestration
Donut chart showing that over the next 18 months FSI organizations expect to use agentic AI for coordinating across multiple enterprise systems 55% Coordinating across multiple enterprise systems
donut chart showing that over the next 18 months FSI organizations expect to use agentic AI acting as a brand-facing digital representative 51%. Acting as a brand-facing digital representative
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The industry leads in agentic AI deployment in customer-facing workflows, but trails in back-office operations and training.

Percentage using agentic AI across the business or in multiple functions for these key workflows:
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Bar graph comparing financial services with the survey average in customer support (47% vs. 30% survey average,) marketing content creation and activation (30% vs. 22% survey average,) brand discovery and search (30% vs. 24% survey average,) personalization and recommendation (21% vs. 18% survey average,) back-office operations (15% vs. 25% survey average), and employee training and sales coaching (13% vs. 24% survey average.)
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Enterprise-wide AI adoption requires real-time actionable data.

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When it comes to advancing AI initiatives, 55% say their organization's progress is limited by its current level of data unification and structure.
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Building the Foundation for Scalable AI

Operational momentum can only go so far without the foundation to scale it. Unified data, the right talent, and strategic alignment are the connective tissue that transform isolated AI wins into enterprise-wide customer experience orchestration.

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Most firms know where AI can drive the greatest impact.

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have identified practical, high-value AI use cases, compared to 64% of the survey average.

Yet their agentic AI implementation efforts face real headwinds:

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donut charts showing what FSI organization say is holding agentic AI implementation back including data integration and quality issues (77%) cite data integration and quality issues.
donut charts showing what FSI organization say is holding agentic AI implementation back including talent and skills gaps (72%) cite talent and skills gaps.
donut chart showing what FSI organization say is holding agentic AI implementation back including unclear ROI or business case (62%) cite unclear ROI or business case.
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Over one-third (36%) of firms do not have the shared customer data platforms that enable the widespread adoption of generative or agentic AI, compared to only 24% of the survey average.
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The industry takes a cost-first approach to evaluating AI, distorting a fuller picture of the technology’s real value: customer experience.

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Decorative say their leadership prioritizes purely financial metrics — cost, ROI, and revenue — when assessing the success of AI initiatives.
Decorative struggle to demonstrate measurable returns on their AI investments using CX-related metrics.
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Only 19% of decision makers report strong executive-practitioner alignment on AI strategy.

Misalignment is largely driven by:

Colleagues with prompt boxes that read “Ask AI to gather our customer data across channels” and the other reads “We’re not quite set up for that yet.” Lack of executive understanding of AI
AI text box that reads “You’re overdue on your AI essentials training.” Resistance to change
Text boxes that read “AI goals and strategy deck” and “File not found.” Insufficient communication of AI goals and strategies
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These foundational gaps show up downstream in content supply chains and journey orchestration.

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Decorative say their content supply chain is largely linear and resource intensive.
Decorative are using agentic or generative AI for journey design and omnichannel orchestration, compared to 47% of the survey average.
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Section 3

Aligning Customer Trust with Real-World AI Applications

Financial firms are uniquely optimistic about AI’s value to customers — and they understand where customer comfort begins and ends. AI experiences that prioritize transparency and human support will earn trust at every touchpoint.

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Financial services is more confident than other industries about AI’s customer benefits.

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Three donut charts showing that 76% of FSI companies believe AI will mprove experiences for consumers, compared to 65% of the survey average and 67% believe AI will help customers save money and increase their purchasing power, compared to 56% of the survey average. believe AI will improve experiences for consumers, compared to 65% of the survey average.
Three donut charts showing that 76% of FSI companies believe AI will mprove experiences for consumers, compared to 65% of the survey average and 67% believe AI will help customers save money and increase their purchasing power, compared to 56% of the survey average. believe AI will help customers save money and increase their purchasing power, compared to 56% of the survey average.
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The industry understands that human involvement shapes comfort with agentic experiences.

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“Our customers would be comfortable with their personal AI agent working directly on their behalf with a human representative from my organization.”
“Our customers would be comfortable with their personal AI agent making a final decision without their intervention about a product or service from my organization, like a purchase or subscription renewal.”
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To maintain customer trust in agentic AI, the industry prioritizes these three actions:

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AI text box that reads “How can I help you?” Clear disclosure when customers interact with AI
Easy escalation to human customer support
Photo of woman with text boxes that read “Review contract,” “Fill out form,” “Send for approval.” Human-in-the-loop review and quality controls
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The Bottom Line for Financial Services

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The path forward requires a unified foundation that makes end-to-end orchestration possible.

Firms that connect data, prioritize executive-practitioner alignment on AI strategy, and focus on customer trust will turn AI investments into lasting competitive advantage. Here are the top three action items for financial services organizations:

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Extend agentic AI beyond customer-facing workflows.

The industry outpaces others in deploying agentic AI in customer support and marketing — but back-office, training, and orchestration workflows remain underdeveloped. Closing those gaps will unlock compounding value.

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Rebuild the foundation as one connected system.

Unified data, strategic alignment, and a focus on CX-oriented results separate AI investment from AI-driven returns. Address those foundations now, before agentic deployment widens the gap.

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Earn trust in every interaction.

Incorporate transparency and human oversight into AI-enabled products and services, especially where agents are involved.

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View more insights from the 2026 AI and Digital Trends research.

Learn more

APPENDIX

Research Methodology

For Adobe’s 16th annual AI and Digital Trends research, Oxford Economics, in partnership with Adobe, conducted global surveys of 3,000 executives and practitioners and 4,000 customers to better understand how organizations are leveraging AI to capture customer interest, build brand loyalty, and augment customer experience (CX) workflows — and how customers are responding to these changes. The surveys were fielded online and via computer-assisted telephonic interviewing (CATI) from October through November 2025. “Financial services” refers to a global set of executives and practitioners from organizations in the financial services industry. This group makes up 17% of respondents and represents a wide range of business sizes. View the 2026 AI and Digital Trends report for more on the full research methodology.

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Content as a Service v3 - digital-insights - Monday, April 27, 2026 at 10:06

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cardTitle
The top financial services industry takeaways.
CardDescription
Understand the actions financial services leaders must take now to turn AI investment into trusted, personalized client experiences.
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2026-08-07
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caas:content-type/report, caas:topic/thought-leadership, caas:topic/digital-trends, caas:industry/financial-services

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