Global banks are rapidly scaling up their artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to strengthen financial crime and compliance (FCC) programs, achieving significant cost savings and efficiency gains, according to new research from Hawk, a leading provider of AI-powered fraud prevention and AML solutions, in partnership with Chartis Research.
The report, titled “AI in Financial Crime and Compliance: Charting the Path from Pilot to Maturity (Banking Edition)”, reveals that 71% of banks have already recorded measurable cost reductions, while 57% report improved detection accuracy. Notably, 53% of financial institutions expect annual savings exceeding $5 million within two years of AI implementation — a strong indicator of AI’s transformative return on investment.
The findings show a clear shift from pilot projects to enterprise-scale AI deployment, as technologies such as agentic AI and generative AI (GenAI) redefine how banks detect, investigate, and prevent illicit activities.
Tobias Schweiger, CEO of Hawk, noted that the banking sector has reached a “pivotal moment” in AI adoption, emphasizing the importance of holistic integration across machine learning, GenAI, and agentic AI to sustain results and control operational costs.
According to the research, banks now value AI not just for risk mitigation but also for enhancing investigative quality, decision-making, and operational agility. Generative AI is driving advances in data analysis, document processing, and model development, while agentic AI is transforming investigations and suspicious activity reporting (SAR) workflows by automating narrative drafting and contextual intelligence synthesis.
Sean O’Malley, Research Director at Chartis Research, stated: “Banks aren’t asking if AI works anymore — they’re asking how to scale it. With regulatory attitudes evolving and ROI increasingly clear, 2026 is set to mark a major leap in AI maturity across compliance functions.”
Key trends highlighted in the study include:
- 62% of banks plan further AI adoption in FCC programs within 12 months.
- 86% cite machine learning as the most impactful technology, followed by GenAI (83%) and agentic/NLP AI (76%).
- 82% expect AI investments to increase by over 25% in the next year.
- 60% believe regulators will become more supportive of AI adoption by 2028.
As banks continue to embed explainable and scalable AI into compliance operations, the technology is becoming a cornerstone of proactive financial crime prevention — delivering both operational excellence and regulatory confidence.
