Accelerate the path for the banking industry's generative AI from potential to profitability

Boston Consulting Group Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI,infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaborationtools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offersa powerful, optimized AI stack with its own planet-scaleinfrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in businessand society to tackle their most important challenges andcapture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneerin business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functionalexpertise and a range of perspectives that question thestatus quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutionsthrough leading-edge management consulting, technologyand design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work This report is the outcome of a collaboration between Google Cloud and BCG. Contents 01Introduction 02The true opportunity of(Gen)AI for Banks 03What is driving the gapbetween potential and 04Rethinking the path to getahead with (Gen)AI 05GenAI & Agentic AITechnology for Banking 06Call to action: The ScalingAI Playbook Introduction Artificial Intelligence (AI) has reshaped financialservicesover the past two decades.Today, the pace of Despite this remarkable pace and promise, we findsignificant gaps still remaining in turning promise intorealized value. While AI is transforming businesses fasterthan ever, only 51% of financial institutions report having change is accelerating once again. Predictive AI helped financial institutions defend againstdigital disruptors and streamline their operations. Thearrival of generative AI (GenAI) amplified both opportunity Of this 51%, just 3% of financial institutions have achievedvalue from AI at scale. These ‘future-built’ leaders havedeveloped the right foundations—robust data architecture, Agentic AI stretches the frontier further. By enablingsystems to act autonomously, agentic AI moves beyondanalysis into action, turning insight into execution. A further 48% of banks are beginning to see early results,but have yet to scale their initiatives or demonstrateconsistent outcomes. Meanwhile, the remaining 49% stillstruggle to capture tangible returns, reporting minimal Leaders across the industry recognize that AI will drive afundamental shift in how financial institutions operate,compete, and create value. In Boston Consulting Group’s(BCG) 2025 global survey of 1,250 executives, 75% rankedAI and GenAI among their top three strategic priorities forthe year ahead. Within financial institutions, 65% seesubstantial value potential in GenAI. Companies are In the last three years, future-built financial institutionshave grown faster and delivered stronger shareholder EXHIBIT 1 The AI value gap for Financial Institutions These institutions have achieved 3.5x faster revenuegrowth and delivered 2.2x higher total shareholder returnsover the last three years. This performance gap is furtherexacerbated by GenAI and agentic AI which are Leading financial institutions are already seeing returns.On average, these banks have realized a 2.4% increase inrevenue and 4.2% reduction in cost—nearly double that Leaders are reinvesting these returns in new AI capabilities.These leaders are spending more on IT as a share ofrevenue, and allocating a greater share of the IT budget toAI. By 2028, future-built banks expect a 9.3% revenue GenAI is expanding the scope of what financial institutionscan achieve. By leveraging large language models (LLM)and multimodal architectures, banks can now generatecontent with prompts, extract insights from unstructured Financial institutions that act early will strengthen theirposition within this virtuous cycle, while those that hesitate Leading global banking institutions have already deployedGenAI for personalized product recommendations inprivate banking and AI-powered customer assistance in Agentic AI pushes this progression further by actingautonomously and proactively. AI agents can help banksobserve, plan, and execute actions through applicationprogramming interfaces (APIs) that are continuouslylearning and optimizing outputs based on feedback in real EXHIBIT 2 Leaders experience a virtuous cycle of AI value creation by Our findings draw on global research groundedin local perspectives To understand how AI is reshaping financial institutions,we drew on our global research and experience fromover 200 AI and digital transformation programsworldwide. Our analysis builds on the insights of 1,250 We also engaged 10+ Indonesian leaders and experts ondigital and AI in banking to better understand localnuances and perspectives on AI adoption, challenges,and opportunities. This blended approach gave us aholistic view of how AI is driving measurable value for The true opportunity of (Gen)AI for AI has long since moved from experimentation toexecution, and we are already seeing its tangible impact in‘future-built’ banks. In 2025, leadi