2026 AI and Digital Trends in Financial Services | Adobe UK

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 organisations must take now to turn AI-powered opportunities into trusted, personalised 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 organisations 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 co-ordination.

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

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Section 1

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 maximise 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 organisation.

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

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Graph showing 66%
say their processes are routinely automated by AI.
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In the next 18 months, organisations expect to have the following agentic AI capabilities:

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Donut chart showing 61% Assisting marketing with campaign orchestration
Donut chart showing 55% Co-ordinating across multiple enterprise systems
donut chart showing 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 personalisation 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.

When it comes to advancing AI initiatives, 55% say their organisation's progress is limited by its current level of data unification and structure.
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Section 2

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.

Graph showing 71%
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 chart showing what FSI organisation say is holding agentic AI implementation back including data integration and quality issues 77% cite data integration and quality issues.
donut chart showing what FSI organisation say is holding agentic AI implementation back including talent and skills gaps 72% cite talent and skills gaps.
donut chart showing what FSI organisation 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 haven't got 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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Graph showing 60% say their leadership prioritises purely financial metrics — cost, ROI and revenue — when assessing the success of AI initiatives.
Graph showing 54% 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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Graph showing 61% say their content supply chain is largely linear and resource-intensive.
Graph showing 33% 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 prioritise 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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Donut chart showing 76% believe AI will improve experiences for consumers, compared to 65% of the survey average.
Donut chart showing 67% 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 organisation.”
bar graph with data showing that 69% Financial services industry vs 56% survey average
“Our customers would be comfortable with their personal AI agent making a final decision without their intervention about a product or service from my organisation, like a purchase or subscription renewal.”
bar graph with data that shows 22% Financial services industry vs 35% survey average
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To maintain customer trust in agentic AI, the industry prioritises these three actions:

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AI text box that reads How can I help you Clear disclosure when customers interact with AI
Photo of woman with text box that reads I’m Jane your customer support assistant Easy escalation to human customer support
Photo of woman with text boxes that read Review contract Fill in form Send for approval Human-in-the-loop review and quality controls
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Section 4

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, prioritise 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 organisations:

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.

Rebuild the foundation as one connected system.

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

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 organisations 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 organisations 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, 27 April 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, personalised client experiences.
cardDate
2026-08-07
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caas:content-type/report
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caas:content-type/report, caas:topic/thought-leadership, caas:topic/digital-trends, caas:industry/financial-services