What's next for financial services?
Recent conversations at financial services industry events, like Money 20/20 USA, Fintech Festival, and the Future of Insurance Canada, highlighted the importance of business value in every technical initiative. Leaders at financial service institutions (FSIs) see too many high-profile projects falling short of their promises. GenAI is front and center, on top of the priorities, but realize few tangible returns, which is especially concerning considering AI workloads have increased cloud costs by an average of 30%.
As FSIs look to use technology to lead their markets with products, services, and customer experiences, they’re sharing many challenges and questions about how to realize their visions for the future of financial services. So how can organizations turn technology investments into business value? How can AI drive cross-selling and upselling opportunities? And how can AI and automation enhance the customer experience?
Look inside Amdocs Studios
As a 20-year Amdocs veteran, I've witnessed the growth of our relationships with FSIs. For over a decade, we've worked with banks to deliver customer-centric product personalization levels more commonly associated with tech giants. At the same time, we've acquired companies that provide mainframe modernization, high-end cloud engineering, experience design and more. The synergies created align perfectly with our new Amdocs Studios service delivery model.
This studio-based approach grew out of a shift Amdocs made several years ago. We stopped considering technical wins in isolation, though we were proud of our achievements. Instead, we recognized that true success lies in our customers' customers and employees' experience. That realization changed how we develop and implement technology and serve our customers. Our motto, "Make it amazing," captures the shift from focusing on the tech stack to viewing technology as a catalyst for customer impact.
The tightening of the connection between technical needs and business goals led Amdocs to create four separate studios: Amdocs Data & GenAI, Cloud, Quality Engineering, and Experience studios. Under the Amdocs Studio umbrella, we unite the industry and technical experts to modernize enterprise services from the core to the customer. We help turn data into value, use automation to accelerate modernization, and – most importantly – wow customers.
The approach also maximizes the cross-pollination of fresh ideas across sectors while our experts ensure a perfect fit. It delivers boutique-level expertise with the advantages of global scale and reach so that innovations that supercharge cross-selling or cost reduction – such as personalization or automation – can flow across industries faster. So for example, when we help a communication service provider harness unstructured data for AI at lower cost, we’re effectively accelerating FSIs on the same path, as financial services specialists provide sector-specific guidance.
Realizing the promise of GenAI
The state of GenAI today underscores the importance of combining technical and industry expertise to further business goals. As FSIs explore GenAI with proof-of-concept projects, the results, at first glance, can seem spectacular. But on closer inspection, the outputs are too generic and require tuning LLMs with the relevant business taxonomy. Cost and privacy considerations further complicate things. Customers don't want bland answers at fantastic speed – they want quality interactions. So how do FSIs avoid a high-cost innovation that delivers only so-so business value?
The key lies in training the AI models with industry expertise and relevant data to serve as guardrails, while regulatory and cost considerations also act as guides. Indeed, with the right specialists’ contributions, GenAI delivers the compliancy, accuracy and specificity customers expect – at a reasonable price. For most FSIs, GenAI copilots are the first step towards accelerating processes and empowering employees to provide faster, more insightful help.
With these elements in place, copilots can quickly evolve into GenAI agents – with the ability to adapt to customers' age, sentiment, and previous experiences, providing personalized interactions along with tailored product offers. It’s like having a conversation with your own personal banker who can help you select the best car loan for your situation or set up a savings plan for your dream vacation. That's the kind of outcome Amdocs Studios teams are helping FSIs work towards – redefining efficiency in financial services by moving beyond generic AI responses to deliver precise, personalized interactions that drive business value.
Make amazing ideas come to life
Ultimately, alignment of technology, cost, and compliance will drive market leadership across industries. But this isn’t limited to AI. To position themselves for success, FSIs need to adopt an end-to-end approach capable of fueling all their cloud, digital experience, and quality engineering initiatives – strategically and holistically. Talk to us about how Amdocs Studios can help you master the details that turn promising ideas into impactful results at scale.