Financial institutions find themselves at a critical inflection point — leading the charge in artificial intelligence (AI) adoption as compared to other industries, while grappling with fundamental customer experience (CX) challenges.
The 2025 “State of Customer Experience” report reveals a striking paradox: While financial services outpace industries such as healthcare, government and retail/eCommerce in their commitment to AI-powered customer experiences, the industry simultaneously struggles with attributes that customers most value, such as empathy.
According to the Genesys report, 53% of consumers globally have had to repeat information to a second agent during an interaction in the past year, and 22% say repeating themselves makes them want to yell or vow never to use the company again. But only 21% of CX leaders at financial institutions surveyed rate “listening, understanding and empathy” among their top three interaction values. This disconnect between digital ambition and customer reality presents both a challenge and an opportunity for financial services leaders.
The personalization imperative
No longer confined to rigid channels, today’s consumers expect the flexibility to connect with their financial providers anytime, anywhere, and on their terms. And they expect institutions to offer personalized services and offerings that reflect their relationship and their needs, while balancing security and privacy.
Personalization represents an inflection point for financial services. With 43% of global CX leaders surveyed across all industries prioritizing “increasing customer understanding and personalization,” the importance is clearly recognized.
Our report found that 77% of consumers globally say they’re likely to recommend brands that consistently provide personalized service experiences. For financial institutions, where trust and relationships are paramount, this statistic should serve as both validation and motivation.
However, execution remains difficult. While 41% of financial services leaders surveyed claim to deliver “extremely personalized customer service experiences,” the industry faces persistent challenges in connecting data across channels and maintaining context throughout customer journeys. Our report found that only 16% of financial services CX leaders say their organizations offer multiple channels with completely integrated technology and data.
A self-service revolution
The days of customers visiting a bank branch to complete simple transactions are long gone. Financial services outpace other industries in their aggressive pursuit of self-service adoption. According to our report, 35% of financial institutions prioritize “driving self-service adoption to improve efficiency.” This leadership position reflects both the industry’s operational pressures — branches are a significant expense — and its recognition of changing customer preferences. But this comes with heightened pressure. According to our report, 41% of CX leaders in financial services include “improving self-service effectiveness” in their list of top pain points.
“The State of Customer Experience” 2025 report found the industry’s third-greatest hurdle is “improving effectiveness of self-service technologies,” suggesting that ambition has outpaced capability. This gap manifests in customer frustration. According to the report, 33% of global consumers surveyed have experienced being unable to access an agent directly from a chatbot, with 40% finding this “really frustrating” and 26% of consumers saying it makes them want to cry, scream or stop doing business with the company entirely.
For an industry that relies heavily on self-service but where customers are likely to always want the option to speak to a human agent for certain transactions, there’s a balance to be struck. Financial institutions should aim to ensure that they continue to invest in self-service technologies, including more sophisticated virtual agents. They should also aim to ensure customers can still reach a human when that’s their preference — and deploy tools such as agent copilot and auto summarization to make human agents more efficient and empathetic.
Building for an AI future
Financial institutions have emerged as leaders in the AI revolution. According to “The State of Customer Experience” 2025 report, 45% of financial services companies cite “increasing the use of AI for improved customer experience” as a top strategic priority — significantly higher than the healthcare (33%), retail (39%) and government sectors (26%). This positions financial services at the forefront of AI adoption, even surpassing the overall market average of 42%.
Financial institutions also understand that AI requires a robust data foundation. An impressive 44% of respondents prioritize “enhancing data capabilities for real-time insights, analytics and reporting” — a critical prerequisite for successful AI implementation. This focus on data infrastructure demonstrates a mature understanding of what AI truly requires delivering the most value. It’s worth noting that data readiness is an ongoing need, as organizations constantly create new data. Having a data strategy is a must.
Yet despite these investments, fewer than 40% of financial institutions surveyed believe they are “significantly minimizing customer effort,” revealing a gap between technological capability and true customer impact. Bridging the divide requires a holistic approach to connect systems and data sources, allowing customers to move through a clear, seamless journey — within or across channels — without having to answer repeated questions or provide the same information more than once.
The path forward: Bridging digital innovation and human connection
The data reveals that financial institutions stand at a pivotal moment. Their leadership in AI adoption and self-service technology positions them to continue evolving the customer experience. The path forward requires doubling down on digital ambitions while orchestrating them in service of fundamentally human needs.
Channel orchestration is table stakes
“The State of Customer Experience” 2025 report found that while 37% of financial institutions prioritize “connecting technology and data to deliver an omnichannel experience,” only 16% of organizations have achieved truly integrated technology with seamlessly connected data — a sharp shortfall against the 97% of consumers surveyed who stated that seamless channel-to-channel hand-offs are important to them.
This gap represents an opportunity for financial institutions. Channel orchestration means helping to ensure smooth transitions from chatbot to human agent, from mobile app to branch visit, from call center to digital platform.
It means preserving context, so customers have to repeat themselves less frequently. It means leveraging AI to improve both the customer and employee experience. And it means grounding customer experience in empathy.
For organizations that have invested heavily in both digital channels and physical branches, orchestration transforms these parallel investments into a potential competitive advantage.
Make AI an amplifier
As the era of AI continues to accelerate change at what feels like warp speed, financial institutions stand at a crossroads. Their leadership in AI adoption positions them to either revolutionize customer experience or amplify existing frustrations through poorly executed automation.
“The State of Customer Experience” 2025 report found 45% of financial institutions surveyed prioritize AI adoption, signaling the technology foundation exists: adopting AI across the customer experience, from intelligently routing customers to automating routine tasks to free up agents for complex, high-stakes interactions where empathy and judgment matter most.
They can also deploy technologies such as coaching and AI-powered auto-summarization to help each agent improve and reduce valuable post-call time (while increasing quality). The 41% of financial institutions surveyed who reported being challenged by self-service effectiveness can use AI to create more sophisticated virtual agents that can handle more complex interactions and better support human agents.
Reimagine what’s possible
The biggest opportunity lies not in optimizing existing processes but in reimagining them entirely. With 51% of financial institutions surveyed implementing integrated customer experience platforms and 44% enhancing data capabilities, the technical foundation for transformation exists.
Consider what becomes possible: a chatbot detecting frustration and proactively offering a callback from a specialist. A visit to the local bank branch triggers personalized digital follow-ups that continue the conversation, offering advisory conversations that drive lifetime value. Institutions must stop seeing channels as separate swim lanes and start seeing them as instruments in an orchestra, each playing their part in a larger symphony of customer experience.
Achieving this vision requires a reimagined approach to customer and employee experiences. It calls for integrated interaction channels, self-service options, proactive communication and empowered agents equipped with knowledge bases and agent-assist tools.
By closing the gap between digital investments and human needs, financial institutions can transform their AI leadership into genuine customer experience excellence. And in the age of AI, we believe the opportunities to sustainably transform and improve customer experiences are limited only by imagination.
