A lot has changed in a year, with AI still evolving at an incredible pace. To understand how this has impacted the industry, we asked financial services firms the same question in 2024 and again in 2025. One year on, we analyse where these financial services firms really are with AI adoption.
Where are firms on their AI journey in 2025?
Back in 2024, Lanware asked financial services firms where they were on their AI Journey. The results were unsurprising, with the vast majority of firms either exploring AI options or piloting AI in some way. This reflected our own experience with AI deployment across the sector – use cases hadn’t yet fully materialised, and the technology was evolving so quickly that it was difficult to determine which tools were the best fit and what the right adoption strategy should be.
A year on, the sense is that the world in general has moved much further on with AI. Trying to keep up with the constant stream of AI updates remains overwhelming, and the pace of progress has been incredible. But has adoption actually increased?
In 2025, we asked financial services firms the same question again. This time, there were no respondents who said they were not exploring AI, and the majority had moved from piloting to actively deploying AI within their businesses.
Interestingly, the number of firms stating that AI is core to their strategy has not changed materially over the past year. While there has undoubtedly been an increase in AI adoption and clear progress has been made, the overall sentiment still appears to be one of caution.
What are the barriers to AI?
In 2025, we asked firms about the barriers they faced when exploring, piloting, or deploying AI in their businesses.
There appear to be two clear factors. First, a lack of internal AI expertise, which can potentially prevent firms from understanding where AI should be applied in the business and what problems it can solve. Second, data quality and availability – some firms understand potentially where AI could solve business challenges, but their data is not in the right place or in the right format for the AI to access effectively.
From the results, it appears that cost does not seem to be a major concern. While AI tools tend to be on the premium side of cost, they are generally within reach for most firms.
What do financial services firms believe AI will solve?
We asked financial services firms to vote on the AI use cases where they believe AI can add value.
The results revealed clear use-case winners. Firms overwhelmingly believe that AI can help with general productivity enhancements in their business, followed closely by investment research.
Where will financial services firms be in 2026?
The trajectory is clear: more AI lies ahead. Financial services firms will continue to adopt it, but, based on the data so far, AI may not yet become intrinsic to the core functioning of their business.
That said, a lot can change in just a year, especially in the fast-moving world of AI.
