For years, banking and finance leaders were told that AI would be the silver bullet. It would help them cut fraud, streamline complicated compliance guidelines, and deliver hyper-personalized customer service. 

Trillions of dollars have poured into AI projects. Business research found that AI is expected to “contribute $1.2 trillion to the global banking industry’s bottom line by 2030, with 2025 marking the inflection point for scaled ROI,” according to coinlaw.com. 

One study shows that 72 percent of bankers and finance leaders utilize AI for their operations. However, most institutions still struggle with inefficiencies, fail to meet customer expectations, and have difficulty proving ROI. 

Why isn’t this investment adding up for the banking industry?

It’s because traditional AI and even generative AI don’t go far enough.

Generative AI has dazzled the world with its ability to chat like a human and generate personalized content. But in banking, a chatbot that needs hand-holding isn’t a mind-blowing customer experience. Banks don’t need another assistant who waits for instructions; they need a partner who takes initiative, understands risk, and acts in real time.

That’s why the real deal-breaking difference isn’t between banks that adopt AI and those that don’t. Instead, it’s between banks that are stuck on generative AI and those that are bold enough to embrace agentic AI. 

 

How the Difference Plays Out in Banking

While generative AI equips teams with insights, drafts, and summaries that still require human intervention, agentic AI takes it a step further by executing decisions, driving workflows, and ensuring compliance in real time. 

The result is faster fraud detection, more proactive customer engagement, and streamlined operations that not only reduce risk but also help banks stay ahead in a highly competitive, highly regulated market.

 

Fraud Detection & Risk Management

• Generative AI: Identifies unusual activity but requires analysts to decide next steps.
• Agentic AI: Investigates suspicious activity, blocks transactions instantly, and alerts teams without waiting for approval.

Research found that over half (58 percent) of bankers sought AI for enhanced fraud detection. What GenAI started, Agentic AI can bring it home. 

 

Customer Experience

• Generative AI: Drafts personalized recommendations or campaign messages.
• Agentic AI: Provides proactive, real-time financial guidance, suggesting the right product or service before the customer even asks.

Did you know 50 percent of banking customers aren’t satisfied with their banking options? Finance stakeholders hope agentic AI can create proactive, hyper-personalized experiences that satisfy customers.   

 

Operational Efficiency

• Generative AI: Summarizes compliance reports or supports back-office workflows.
• Agentic AI: Acts like a virtual operations assistant, prioritizing tasks, triggering workflows across systems, and ensuring compliance checks are completed end-to-end.

“In compliance, it could refine risk assessments in real time, dynamically responding to emerging threats and anomalies,” World Economic Forum researchers said. “In customer engagement, it could augment static advisory models into dynamic financial coaching tailored to individual behaviours. Though still nascent, Agentic AI promises to enhance productivity, precision, and decision-making, driving financial services towards deeper process autonomy.”

 

Decision-Making & Forecasting

• Generative AI: Builds models but depends on humans to structure and interpret results.
• Agentic AI: Creates its own frameworks, improves predictions continuously, and makes actionable recommendations that executives can implement immediately.

 

Why Banks Need a Partner Like Simplus

The deal-breaking difference may be clear, but making the leap from GenAI to agentic AI isn’t simple. Without the right expertise, implementation can stall, compliance risks can rise, and costs can balloon.

With Salesforce innovation, Simplus helps banks overcome these challenges by:

• Maximizing ROI: Aligning agentic AI with core banking goals like fraud prevention, loan efficiency, and customer loyalty.
• Ensuring compliance: Designing AI models that meet strict financial regulations.
• Driving adoption: Supporting employees with change management so AI becomes an everyday partner, not a confusing new tool.
• Integrating seamlessly: Connecting agentic AI to existing banking systems, including CRM, security, and compliance platforms.
• Building resilience: Helping banks adapt AI strategies as customer expectations, technologies, and regulations evolve.

As you can see, the difference between AI and agentic AI isn’t subtle. Generative AI helps banks communicate and analyze, but agentic AI leaps into autonomous action, enabling real-time fraud prevention, hyper-personalized customer engagement, and operational excellence.

With a trusted partner like the Simplus Business Transformation Services team, banks can confidently unlock that next level of intelligence and finally realize the bottom-line value that AI has long promised. Have questions? We can help!