Only One-Third of FSI Organizations are Widely Adapting AI – What is Everyone Else Missing?

A new year means new changes. In 2021 the most anticipated change for the Financial Services Industry (FSI) is in customer experience, according to findings from a recent Sitecore survey, AI & Digital Transformation: How has COVID Affected CX? To help prioritize customer experience FSI is looking to artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver their innovation, but despite the interest the changes might not happen not as quickly as you’d expect.

So, what’s happening?

“The survey shows a gap between the rising knowledge that artificial intelligence (AI) is going to play a key role in digital transformation in the near future and the ability to leverage it any time soon,” said Jacqueline Baxter, Senior Digital Strategist at Sitecore. “Despite AI being a formalized discussion point for 92 percent of our surveyed organizations, any real advantages of using AI are being missed because of siloed working.”

The survey polled 100 IT and Marketing Directors, VPs, CMOs, and CIOs in the highly regulated North American FSI sector. While it’s no surprise that 78 percent of the FSI leaders reported a higher uptick in self-service interactions and/or mobile usage, it’s revealing that, at the same time, 79 percent of those surveyed said they are struggling to achieve business agility.

“We don’t expect this trend to be reversed now that customers are used to using self-service tools,” Baxter said. “We’re only going to see ever-more sophisticated omnichannel self-service portals and chat tools. If you want to stay competitive, this is one of the investments you need to make.”

Meeting customer demands and providing an excellent experience hinges on digital capabilities – capabilities that AI can make possible and accessible. Baxter identifies the top three FSI CX and AI use cases: creating efficiency in the end-to-end customer experience, delivering personalization, and streamlining departmental collaboration.

Solutions that leverage AI can deliver the engaging content that customers crave and insights that FSI teams need to capitalize on the trends organizations are seeing emerge from the pandemic.

“The pandemic has shown us that customer needs can change very quickly,” said Paige O’Neill, Sitecore CMO, at the recent Sitecore Symposium. “Customers want to feel listened to; they want to feel valued at all times really, but even more so during times of critical needs. Brands are being judged on how they respond to those customer demands in that moment.”

Is your organization ready to deliver on customer expectations in 2021? Access the infographic to learn more about the CX shift in a highly regulated FinServ sector.