With the rise of Generative and Agentic AI, financial services have an opportunity to move beyond automation and rethink the entire customer journey.
But expectations are rising just as quickly. Customers want instant, personalised experiences. Regulators demand transparency, compliance and accountability. And businesses need to scale operations without compromising service quality.
In our recent webinar, AI-Powered Automation for Fintech, FX and Trading, five industry experts from EBO, Microsoft, Alpha Group and PwC shared their perspectives on where AI is heading, what’s holding businesses back and how organisations can turn AI potential into real business value.
Here are five key insights worth taking away.
Missed the live webinar? Watch the full video recording here.
Don’t just adopt AI. Build your business around it.
What makes Agentic AI different from traditional AI? Dr. Gege Gatt, CEO of EBO, explored how AI has evolved from basic chatbots that simply answer questions to intelligent agents that can provide proactive guidance, coordinate multiple tasks and act autonomously.
He also highlighted a significant gap between AI adoption and meaningful business integration. While 81% of financial services firms have adopted AI at some level, digital-native fintechs are leading the way, with adoption rates of 47%, compared with 30% among traditional financial institutions. Yet only 41% of firms report that AI is fully integrated into their processes and back-office data.
For Gege, this gap represents a major opportunity: the real value of AI lies not simply in adopting the technology, but in embedding it across the business to transform how organisations operate and serve their customers.
"By the end of this decade, there are going to be only two types of companies remaining, those who are AI first and those who are out of business.”
How Microsoft sees the next challenge for AI
Moving from an AI pilot to a solution that works reliably in the real world takes more than choosing the latest model.
Spiros Konstantopoulos, Senior Solution Engineer for Azure Apps and AI at Microsoft, addressed some of the key questions businesses should ask before adopting AI: Where does client data go? Is it used to train the model? Who can access it?
That means grounding AI in the right information, putting governance in place and monitoring performance after launch. Businesses should continue learning from failures, measuring resolution rates, repeat contacts and escalations.
"Don’t measure AI success by the technology you deploy. Measure it by the business problem you solve."
AI in Action: Transforming the End-to-End Customer Experience
In a live demo, Conrad Aquilina, Financial Services Director at EBO, showed how AI-powered engagement can support customers throughout their journey.
The demonstration illustrated how EBO's AI-powered solution supports different customer scenarios, from onboarding and document checks to payment queries, withdrawal escalations and proactive engagement with VIP traders.
These journeys operate within defined policy boundaries, with seamless human handovers and audit trails built in, enabling financial services organisations to deliver more personalised, responsive and efficient customer experiences while maintaining control and compliance.
Why the best customer experience still needs a human touch
Andrea Bocchino, Head of Transaction Monitoring at Alpha Group highlighted how customer expectations are changing by 2027.
His view of the future is not AI replacing human support, but the two working as an integrated team. AI can handle straightforward requests while giving human agents valuable context behind the scenes, by gathering the customer’s history and recommending next steps.
PwC: Why choosing the right AI matters more than choosing the latest one
With new AI capabilities emerging all the time, it’s easy for businesses to get caught up in the technology. Jake Azzopardi, Senior Manager, Data, AI & Digital Transformation, at PwC, offered a more practical perspective: choose the right AI for the right task.
He outlined a framework for approaching AI responsibly, encouraging organisations to consider five important questions.
Successful AI adoption isn’t about using the most advanced technology. It’s about matching the right solution to the right business need, with the right safeguards.
90 seconds of positive friction
Discussing payment fraud and PSD3, Conrad Aquilina demonstrated how AI can intervene at the right moment, using timely prompts and customer education to help people recognise suspicious activity and think twice before making risky transactions.
All this by creating “positive friction”, a simple pause that could prevent a costly mistake.
Let there be Change
Ready to transform your customer experience and streamline operations with AI?
Connect with Conrad Aquilina to explore how EBO’s AI-powered solutions, including EBO Guard, can help enhance customer engagement, strengthen fraud prevention and make a measurable impact on your organisation.
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