• AI adoption in financial crime and compliance reaches critical mass across banks
• 90 percent of banks encourage AI use and 70 percent already deploy solutions
• Fraud prevention and AML monitoring lead adoption due to measurable efficiency gains
• Banks report major cost savings, many exceeding one million dollars annually
• Generative and agentic AI expected to transform investigations and workflow automation
• Payments and FinTech firms show similar scaling trajectories with strong financial returns

AI has entered a new phase within the financial sector, moving beyond limited pilots and experimental initiatives to become a central component of financial crime and compliance operations, according to new research from Hawk in partnership with Chartis.

The study, which surveyed 250 banks, payment providers and FinTech firms, found that financial institutions are now treating AI as a foundational operational capability.

Adoption within banking has reached a critical tipping point, with nearly 90 percent of banks encouraging AI use across compliance functions and 70 percent already deploying it in active financial crime programmes.

While the level of maturity differs across organisations, the trend line is clear. Almost half of banks are piloting AI tools, 16 percent have fully operational deployments, and a growing minority have integrated AI at a strategic, enterprise wide level.

Fraud prevention is seeing the fastest adoption, followed closely by transaction monitoring in anti money laundering, areas where automation delivers measurable gains.

Investment patterns reinforce this acceleration. More than four in five banks expect to increase AI spending by at least 25 percent over the next two years, signalling strong internal confidence in AI’s long term role in compliance frameworks.

One of the most striking findings is the scale of unexpected cost efficiencies. While relatively few banks initially viewed cost reduction as a priority, more than 70 percent now report realised savings.

Nearly half say AI delivered more than one million dollars in savings over the past year, and most expect annual reductions exceeding five million dollars by 2026.

Attention is now turning to emerging forms of generative and agentic AI. Banking leaders acknowledge their potential to transform investigative processes but remain cautious due to regulatory scrutiny, audit obligations and concerns about excessive automation or erosion of human judgement.

Still, there is optimism about using AI agents to reduce bottlenecks in investigations by automating research, data collection and Suspicious Activity Report drafting.

Payment firms and FinTechs are following a similar path, though with a stronger commercial lens. Fraud prevention remains their leading adoption point, with nearly three quarters already piloting or running AI based solutions.

AML and sanctions screening follow closely, driven by the pressure to maintain compliance while handling high transaction volumes.

The financial returns in the payments and FinTech sectors are significant. Almost three quarters report meaningful cost savings in AML processes, and many expect annual savings to exceed five million dollars as deployments mature.

Investment plans show strong enthusiasm for generative and agentic AI as firms seek to scale operations without increasing headcount.

The research concludes that financial institutions have reached an inflection point.

The next phase will focus less on whether to adopt AI and more on how to scale it safely, ensuring governance, explainability and regulatory alignment while embedding AI as a long term enabler of sustainable value creation.