Artificial intelligence is becoming one of the most important technologies used by the financial sector. Banks and insurers are among the leaders in adopting AI across the economy, using it to develop new service models, personalize offers, automate processes and strengthen cybersecurity. Experts point out, however, that the future pace of innovation will depend not only on regulation and investment, but also on access to critical technological components.
“For the financial sector, artificial intelligence will certainly be of key importance. First of all, we need to look at it from the perspective of customer service, meaning better adjustment of banking and insurance offers to individual clients through AI. This is already happening,” says Tadeusz Woszczyński, Chairman of the Banking & Insurance TECH Advisory Board.
According to Deloitte’s Banking and Capital Markets Outlook 2026, the financial sector is moving from experimenting with AI to deploying it across entire organizations. The key challenge is the industrialization of artificial intelligence, including the preparation of data, infrastructure and operational processes that allow AI to be used at scale. The technology is already being applied in process automation, data analysis and customer offer personalization.
Analyses by the Financial Stability Board show that financial institutions are also using AI in risk management, fraud detection and creditworthiness assessment. At the same time, alternative data is becoming increasingly important, especially in assessing customers who do not have a traditional credit history.
“Another area is support in attracting new customers to banks. This includes a range of technologies that support banking as a service, meaning the delivery of banking services through external partners: shops, retail chains, insurers, energy operators or railway companies. We are seeing this trend globally as well. Artificial intelligence can certainly help here, for example in credit scoring for new customers whom the bank does not know because they are not yet its clients,” explains Woszczyński.
In the European Union, the development of open banking has been accelerated by regulations such as PSD2, which enabled closer cooperation between banks and other industries. This has supported the growth of models such as banking as a service. The scale of this phenomenon is increasing, with more banks operating in open banking models and the number of users of such services reaching tens of millions.
According to Woszczyński, the Polish banking sector remains highly innovative, although the environment has become more challenging.
“The Polish banking sector is still very innovative. Perhaps not as much as in the past, because we now face more burdens of various kinds, including taxes, which means banks are more focused on cost reduction than on major investments in innovation. However, compared with other banking sectors, we can still call ourselves a leader,” he says.
The main threat to further innovation in banking, he argues, is geopolitics, which may restrict access to technology and critical infrastructure.
“When it comes to various electronic components, priority was previously given to artificial intelligence. Now we are seeing a shift toward the defense industry. On the other hand, due to the conflict in Iran, access to all kinds of electronic components is becoming increasingly problematic. The question is whether the development plans of Polish banking in the field of artificial intelligence will be possible if we do not have access to AI infrastructure,” says Woszczyński.
The development of artificial intelligence is closely linked to the availability of advanced computing infrastructure and semiconductors. Production of these components is geographically concentrated, which makes supply chains vulnerable to disruption caused by geopolitical tensions.
Cybersecurity is another key area for the financial sector. Banks are increasingly looking not only at current cyber risks, but also at future technological challenges.
“Another area worth considering is how to respond to cyber threats. One technology we are now discussing in the context of banks is quantum computing. The question is how to prepare for protection against cyberattacks that may be carried out using quantum computing,” says the Chairman of the Banking & Insurance TECH Advisory Board.
The financial sector is among the industries most exposed to cyberattacks. According to ENISA, the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity, between July 2024 and June 2025 the sector accounted for nearly 5% of recorded cyber incidents. The growing scale of cyber threats means that financial institutions must increase investment in security and resilience.
Banks are therefore moving away from fragmented control systems toward integrated risk and security management strategies.
“We are seeing more and more cyberattacks in Poland. Last year there were 270,000 of them, 150% more than in 2024. We therefore need to invest more in cybersecurity, both in terms of data storage and resilience against ransomware, as well as protection against other types of attacks. The technological response now being adopted by banks is primarily the new zero trust architecture, which is entering Poland,” says Woszczyński.
The zero trust security model is becoming one of the main directions in the development of IT architecture in the financial sector. It is based on continuous verification of access to resources and assumes that no user, device or system should be trusted by default.
For banks, artificial intelligence is no longer only a technological experiment. It is becoming part of core business strategy, customer service, risk management and cybersecurity. However, the ability of the sector to continue innovating will increasingly depend on factors outside the banking system itself: geopolitical stability, access to semiconductors, computing power and the ability to build resilient digital infrastructure.
