The 2025 Global Banking Annual Review by McKinsey & Company has projected that agentic AI will reshape global banking, shifting the balance of power from financial institutions to consumers.
According to the report, the next wave of disruption in banking “may come not from within the industry, but from customers themselves,” as users increasingly rely on AI agents to handle financial decisions, transactions, and investments.
“Customers’ use of AI will affect banking value pools at least as much as what banks do, maybe even more,” McKinsey noted.
AI Agents Threaten Banking’s Longstanding Customer Inertia
Traditionally, banks have benefited from customer inertia, a tendency among consumers to remain loyal to existing providers even when better offers are available elsewhere. This inertia has helped sustain profitability, especially in high-margin sectors such as deposits and credit card lending, which accounted for around 10% of global banking profits in 2024.
However, the emergence of neobanks and fintech platforms has already weakened this inertia by making it easier for customers to compare rates and switch providers.
Now, agentic AI, autonomous systems capable of making financial decisions, could accelerate this erosion by empowering consumers to optimize their finances automatically.
These intelligent agents can analyze spending, compare offers, and even execute transactions on behalf of users, removing friction from everyday financial management.
Four Major Shifts in Bank-Customer Relationships
McKinsey identifies four major shifts that widespread adoption of agentic AI could trigger in global banking:
- Commoditization:
AI agents will focus purely on finding the best rates and lowest fees, reducing the impact of brand loyalty and intensifying price competition among banks. - Disaggregation:
Customers may no longer rely on a single institution for all services. AI agents could mix and match providers, breaking up traditional bundled banking models. - Disintermediation:
As consumers interact primarily through third-party AI platforms, direct engagement between banks and customers could decline. - Democratization:
AI could bring affordable financial advice and portfolio management to underserved markets, but at the cost of profit margin compression across the industry.
The Tipping Point: Four Conditions That Will Shape the Future
McKinsey’s report highlights four interrelated factors that will determine the scale and speed of disruption caused by agentic AI:
- The sophistication of AI agents
- Their ability to act autonomously
- The rate of consumer adoption
- How effectively banks respond and adapt
In the firm’s baseline scenario, regulatory frameworks will continue to require customer approval for transactions. However, the growing influence of open banking and digital currencies could eventually enable AI agents to access and manage accounts fully autonomously.
Even limited adoption of simple AI assistants could dramatically alter banking economics, McKinsey warns.
Agentic AI: Moving from Hype to Real-World Impact
While some skepticism remains about the pace of AI innovation, 2025 has shown that agentic AI is rapidly moving from theory to practice. Unlike traditional rule-based AI, agentic systems can analyze unstructured data, personalize interactions, and perform multi-step processes without human input.
According to Evident, a platform that tracks AI applications in financial services, over 160 real-world use cases have been identified across 50 of the world’s largest banks in 2025. Examples include:
- A U.S. bank increased credit memo productivity by 60% using AI agents.
- An Indian digital bank expanded collections monitoring from 4% to 100%.
- A European bank tripled marketing click-through rates via personalized AI campaigns.
- A U.S. investment bank improved deal execution efficiency through AI-driven knowledge management systems.
AI Adoption Set to Redefine Banking Value Pools
McKinsey concludes that agentic AI adoption could reshape global banking more profoundly than previous digital revolutions. By empowering consumers with intelligent automation, the technology may redefine how financial value is created, captured, and distributed across the industry.
The report urges banks to rethink their strategies, prioritize AI integration, and design systems that complement customer-controlled agents, rather than compete with them.
