AI is no longer just a tool for automation—it’s a driving force behind the future of banking. As financial institutions intensify their focus on customer engagement, operational efficiency, and fraud prevention, AI is reshaping the industry with predictive analytics, generative models, and intelligent automation. The question is no longer whether banks will embrace AI, but how they will leverage it to gain a competitive edge.
Qorus and Infosys Finacle launch the 2025 edition of the banking innovation awards
Customer engagement and operational efficiency reign supreme
As banks ramp up their investments in innovation, their priorities are becoming clear—focusing on areas with the most direct impact on business outcomes and customer engagement. Survey results indicate that AI investments will become more evenly distributed across all banking functions, with a particular emphasis on customer engagement, operational efficiency, fraud management, and data-driven insights.
Nearly 67% of banking executives ranked customer engagement among their top three priorities for AI investment. This trend is expected to accelerate as banks increasingly adopt AI-driven predictive analytics to deliver more proactive, personalized offers, services, and solutions based on real-time customer behavior. Generative AI will also play a key role, powering conversational bots and agentic AI tools to enhance customer interactions.
Operational efficiency emerged as the second-highest priority, with 57% of banking executives ranking it among their top three AI investment areas. This focus is unsurprising, given AI’s ability to streamline processes, reduce manual tasks, enhance workforce productivity, and enable predictive maintenance. As banks strive to become leaner and more agile, AI investments in operational efficiency will be essential for building resilient and scalable operations.
The 2025 Qorus-Infosys Finacle Banking Innovation Awards submission guide
Revolutionizing industry trend analysis with AI
Tied with fraud management, analytics and insights were ranked among the top three AI investment areas by 51% of banking executives—underscoring the critical role of data in shaping future banking strategies. Moving forward, AI’s role in predictive and prescriptive analytics will expand, allowing banks not only to understand real-time developments but also to anticipate future trends and customer needs.
“Generative AI refers to the subset of artificial intelligence technologies capable of creating new content, predictions, and data models based on extensive datasets. Unlike traditional AI, which interprets or acts on data within a predefined framework, generative AI can produce novel ideas, simulate future scenarios, and generate insights beyond human extrapolation,” wrote Fatih Ogun, Head of Strategy at Akbank, in a recent article for Qorus.
“In the context of industry trend analysis, generative AI algorithms sift through vast amounts of structured and unstructured data—including market reports, social media feeds, news articles, and consumer behavior data—to identify patterns, correlations, and emerging signals that human analysts might overlook. By leveraging natural language processing, machine learning, and predictive analytics, these AI systems can forecast trends with remarkable accuracy, speed, and depth of insight,” he added—and he is undoubtedly right.
I expect these trends to continue and will be watching with interest to see how they evolve. The banking industry is closely monitoring these transformations, which is why a dedicated AI category is making a comeback at our awards. “Predictive, Generative, and Agentic AI Innovation” is one of the new categories in the Qorus-Infosys Finacle Banking Innovation Awards 2025.
Show me what you’ve got!
The clock is ticking: submissions close on 6 June. I can’t wait to see how you’ll harness AI (but of course, not just this technology—other technologies, approaches, and ideas are more than welcome) to redefine insurance innovation. Impress me – and maybe even leave me in awe!
