Banks worldwide are trying to control the rising cost of artificial intelligence agents as businesses expand their use of automated systems. According to McKinsey's Global Banking Annual Review, spending on the computing tokens that power these agents could account for as much as 20% of total labour costs.
The growing expense has pushed financial institutions to establish dedicated teams, sometimes called AI FinOps, to monitor and manage technology spending. Banks initially attempted to reduce costs by directing employee queries to different AI models based on their complexity. However, this approach has proved less effective when multiple AI agents communicate with one another and consume large amounts of tokens.
Financial institutions are becoming more selective about where they deploy agentic AI. Instead of introducing the technology across every department, they are prioritising applications that offer measurable productivity improvements or generate additional revenue.
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While operational savings are relatively easy to calculate, banks are also examining whether AI agents can help attract customers, improve services and create new income opportunities.
McKinsey expects AI agents to become widely used within the next three years. This would represent faster adoption than mobile internet, which took between five and 10 years to reach widespread use.
A McKinsey survey covering 46,000 retail banking customers worldwide found that many already use AI to compare financial services, identify better savings rates and manage debt. Among respondents who use AI, 72% said they would allow a banking agent to complete one financial task on their behalf. However, they would limit the amount the system could approve independently to USD 500.
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AI agents could help banks reduce operating expenses and increase revenue. However, they may also affect profitability by moving customer deposits into higher-interest accounts. For now, that risk remains limited, as most banks prevent external AI agents from independently authorizing transactions within their systems.