Forrester: Banks Face Steep Odds in AI Transformation, With Only 5% Expected to Succeed by 2027

Financial services firms are poised to undergo a fundamental restructuring as artificial intelligence and new operating models reshape customer acquisition and advisory functions, according to research released by Forrester. The firm's report, "Predictions 2027: Banking and Investing," draws on survey responses from 915 participants across the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada to forecast how the sector will evolve.

Forrester identified several critical inflection points in the coming transition. The research points to significant automation in how customers discover and receive financial guidance, alongside a sobering assessment: while approximately one-third of banks plan to announce AI transformation initiatives, fewer than 5% are expected to achieve meaningful success.

In 2027, financial services will enter a new phase in which intelligence becomes the primary source of value creation. AI assistants are reshaping how customers discover, evaluate and act on financial products; investment participation is expanding despite persistent economic anxiety; and banks are racing to determine whether AI will merely enhance existing operations or fundamentally transform them.

Forrester researchers

Scaling AI for financial services

Forrester's pessimistic success projection stems from a pattern it has observed: many financial institutions are repackaging existing AI efforts as AI-native solutions without overhauling their underlying operational infrastructure. Legacy systems and outdated business processes will constrain the ability to deploy AI at enterprise scale, a challenge that technology vendors including Dell Technologies Inc. are highlighting to their financial services clients.

David Kennedy, Dell's chief financial officer, addressed this scaling challenge in a recent conversation with theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media's livestreaming platform. "Ultimately, I think we've enough proof points now that AI works and it works really well and it gives you speed and efficiency in your company," Kennedy said. "The question is, can you do that at scale?"

Mergers and acquisitions represent one pathway through which financial institutions intend to achieve the necessary scale. Forrester forecasts that AI banking technology M&A activity will surge by 50% during 2027. Banks pursuing these deals will seek proprietary data assets, governance infrastructure, and AI-native orchestration capabilities—requirements that demand proficiency in hybrid computing environments. Compute infrastructure providers such as Advanced Micro Devices Inc. have already begun fielding these demands from their customer base.

Suresh Andani, corporate vice president of compute and enterprise AI at AMD, described the vendor's approach during a theCUBE interview: "As a provider of AI compute, we want to make sure that we are enabling those enterprises to not only run their AI tasks through the frontier APIs in the cloud, but we are providing them infrastructure that they can host open-weight models very efficiently on-prem. Every enterprise conversation I'm in, that's a key topic of discussion."

AI agents themselves are emerging as another focal point for financial institutions. Forrester's data indicates that 40% of banks intend to deploy AI assistants in 2027. The critical challenge lies in configuring these tools to deliver customized guidance grounded in proprietary data, internal decision-making logic, and specialized expertise. Retaining this knowledge internally can provide a meaningful competitive edge, according to John Roese, Dell's global chief technology officer and chief AI officer.

"It doesn't mean you can't use frontier models and open models," Roese told theCUBE. "It just means that when you design your AI system, you need to realize that the thing that is your moat is not the actual tools. It's not even the models. It's the special knowledge that's now manifesting in these new forms that really captured what you know and do differently than your competitors."