Generative AI represents a direct financial impact opportunity for banks worldwide, but for the technology to deliver measurable profitability, financial institutions must overcome a critical investment barrier. For example, if a company allocates very little investment to AI, the economic return is almost negligible. These are some of the conclusions from the White Paper "The AI-Powered Banking Shift", prepared by the technology provider Softtek.
The study highlights that leading banks are distancing themselves from laggards by migrating from simple AI adoption to an AI-First institutional model. While a conventional organisation places intelligent solutions in isolation within its legacy infrastructure, an AI-First entity redesigns its end-to-end processes and technological core under the premise that AI is the central operational layer.
This structural redesign alters the fundamental principle under which the bank creates value, such that it fosters a financial model of decreasing marginal cost that can absorb large volumes of business without the need to replicate physical or personnel structures.
The integration of AI in banking is especially profound because the sector is, in essence, an industry based on information processing, whose most valuable assets are transaction data, behaviours, and risks.
The emergence of global technology platforms, AI-native neobanks, and smart finance providers - which operate without legacy technology systems - threatens to relegate traditional banking to mere “balance sheet providers” if they do not control the direct relationship with the customer or the algorithmic recommendation layer.
As Israel Quiñonero, Technology Director for Banking at Softtek EMEA, explains, “the window of opportunity to build sustainable competitive advantages in AI is real, but it is not infinite. Financial entities that remain in a phase of observation or peripheral experimentation will see how the cumulative advantage of leaders will generate a capabilities asymmetry that cannot be remedied later with late investments. The competitive map of the financial future will be defined by who controls and executes AI at scale in the present.”