American Banker Digital Banking Conference: How Will AI Affect Customer Service?

Financial institutions are scrambling to build AI-powered experiences, but so far, the results have been mixed.

Bob is the managing editor of BizTech magazine.

There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the customer experience in the financial services industry. But how are banks, credit unions and other institutions doing when it comes to balancing the demands of consumers for seamless and simple experiences with institutions’ needs to optimize profitability while complying with myriad regulations?

The answer: They’re still figuring it out. That was a key message on day one of the American Banker Digital Banking Conference, which runs through June 4 in Boca Raton, Fla.

“What customers want is to know their money is secure and to get customer service that’s easy and that they can trust,” Harveer Singh, chief data officer for consumer and small business banking with Truist, said during a panel of experts on how AI is reshaping the industry. Truist is America’s eighth-largest bank by asset size, with more than 1,900 branches in 17 states. “It’s not hard to understand what customers want. But how do you deliver it? One thing that’s not changed is the need of the customer. It’s becoming more clear that they want transparency.”

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Banks should focus on building AI solutions for customers that empower them in subtle ways, said Brianna Elsass, vice president and head of U.S. digital servicing and technology at BMO Financial Group , the 13th-largest U.S. bank. “Customers hear about AI, but they don’t always know when they’re interacting with it,” Elsass said.

Banks of all sizes are still working to build the AI solutions that customers want and that can help bank employees get more done quickly, according to American Banker’s 2025 Data-Driven Bank Research report, some of which was presented during the session. Only 52% of banks have fully implemented chatbots, the same percentage that have fully implemented biometric security. But fewer than 35% of banks have fully implemented almost any other AI-powered solution — including virtual assistants, document processing, predictive analytics, anti-money laundering and more.

DIVE DEEPER: Read more in CDW's Artificial Intelligence Research Report.

Where Are Banks on Their AI Journeys?

Where, then, does that leave institutions on their journey to building fully AI-powered customer experiences? The question is, in some ways, unanswerable, says Singh, because no one knows what the end state looks like with AI.

“If you had asked me that question a year ago, I would have said we’re doing really well,” Singh said. “But then all this agentic AI stuff started, and I thought, ‘Oh boy, we might have to start again.’ I honestly don’t know what stage we’re in. We’re in some stage.”

But the “stage” doesn’t matter as much as an institution’s approach to AI, he said. There are so many things a financial institution might leverage AI to achieve that it’s important to think carefully about which projects to choose. Instead of “chasing shiny objects” that the bank may not have patience to see through, they should focus on projects that drive customer value and that help the institution meet customer needs that currently aren’t being met.

Most customers do business with more than one financial institution, and that’s OK, Singh, said. “But what are they providing that customer that you can’t? Maybe use AI for that.”

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Mid-Tier Banks May Struggle Most to Build AI Experiences

Financial institutions confront many challenges when it comes to building AI-powered customer experiences; in fact, 98% of them told American Banker that they were facing one challenge or another, but the four most common are:

Legacy infrastructure that can’t support new processes (40%)
Regulatory concerns (38%)
No demonstrated ROI (38%)
Lack of qualified staff to develop AI in-house (37%)

Speakers said that it’s the middle-tier banks — those outside the top 20 in terms of assets but still old enough to be operating on legacy technology — that seem to be struggling the most with AI adoption. They often lack the resources for major back-end infrastructure overhauls (especially if they have relied heavily on on-premises data centers), yet they also lack the nimbleness of online-only banks or startup institutions.

There may be some wishful thinking happening among such banks’ IT leaders, speakers said. American Banker’s survey found that global and national banks were three times as likely as midsized or regional institutions to say that AI will have a “revolutionary impact” on the customer experience over the next two years; 56% of the smaller banks said AI will have only a moderate or no impact

“A lot of work has to be done over the next two years in terms of building IT infrastructure and cleaning data to get it ready for AI,” Elsass said. “One reason you see big banks more likely to say AI will be revolutionary is that they have the resources to put into that effort.”

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