Financial firms to raise gen AI spending as they seek growth benefits

Despite hype, gen AI spending is low in 2023, at around $400,000 at its highest.

Financial services (FS) companies are expected to ramp up spending in generative AI (gen AI) as they chase perceived benefits with its adoption.

A study by Forrester found that FS AI decision-makers considered productivity (44%) and revenue growth (44%) as the greatest benefits of using genAI. Innovation, cost efficiency and entering new markets were other benefits named by the 32 AI decision makers surveyed by Forrester.

Whilst spending remains “low”, about 93% of the respondents expect that their organisation’s spending in gen AI will increase in 2024.

As of September 2023, 33% of surveyed respondents quoted a figure of between $300,001 to $400,000 as the highest amount of money they’ve sunk into gen AI. 

Meanwhile, 58% of global business and technology professionals at FS companies have implemented gen AI-enabled use cases in production whilst another 14% were implementing pilots, Forrester said.

The technology department in FS companies leads the lion’s share of gen AI exploration

IT still leads the lion’s share of genAI exploration, with 69% of the genAI decision makers saying such. Business is responsible for only 13% of the study to use gen AI. 

“IT teams should lead gen AI exploration for now but with the view of creating the guardrails, empowering businesses to do more, and gradually shifting accountability and ownership to business teams,” Forrester said in its report.