The most AI-bullish industry is also the most overwhelmed by it
Financial services outspends every sector on AI and reports the greatest complexity burden. Here's what's driving the gap, and how some businesses are closing it.
Financial services firms are in a tough spot when it comes to AI. They are the stewards of other people’s money, and they are highly regulated. Even so, according to a recent study by Freshworks, they are among the most bullish sectors, with 90% of organizations actively using AI and nearly half planning to significantly increase AI investment over the next 12 to 24 months, the highest rate of any industry in the survey of more than 12,000 IT decision-makers globally.
They’re also the most likely to go it alone. Burdened by regulatory requirements, data sensitivity, and audit concerns, financial services is the industry most likely to build AI capabilities in-house: 43% describe their primary approach as building rather than buying, compared to 34% overall, and well above manufacturing (30%) and public sector (27%). And, it is the industry reporting the most severe complexity. Bangor Savings Bank, for example, had a legacy IT service desk so cumbersome that helpdesk associates dreaded using it, finding they spent more time logging tickets than solving problems.
71% of financial services respondents expect AI ROI within eight months, while noting that more than half of deployments take 6 to 12 months just to go live.
An AI approach that lacks ease
While the second Global Cost of Complexity report found that organizations in all sectors lose an average of 25% of their AI budget to complexity overhead, financial services has it much worse: 40% describe AI-related complexity as "very significant," 11 points above the overall average, including industries such as healthcare (35%) and professional services (34%). And a full 86% say that complexity has increased their team's workload while 31% report that AI outputs are generating substantial rework, versus 29% overall. Only 41% describe their AI implementations as fairly well-orchestrated across systems and teams.
"The organizations struggling most aren't the ones that invested too little in AI," says Venkat Venkataraman, VP of product, AI platform & strategy at Freshworks. "They’re the ones scaling AI across fragmented systems, workflows, and governance models without a clear operating layer to connect it all."
Pressure to deliver outcomes
The complexity may stem in part from a race to make good on their investments. Across the survey, 71% of executives expect AI ROI within eight months, while noting that more than half of deployments take 6 to 12 months just to go live. In financial services, that gap has additional pressure: 36% of IT leaders report significant executive pressure to deliver AI results on time, 9% more than the overall average and the highest of any industry surveyed. Eighty-four percent say they're concerned their career progression is at risk if AI doesn't deliver within 12 to 24 months, above the 82% overall average.
But the ROI is coming anyway. Eighty-four percent of financial services IT leaders rate the ROI they're currently seeing from AI as strong, near the average 86% overall average across sectors. The question is what it’s costing to produce.
The financial services sector still leads in its efforts to bring AI into its processes. When Bangor Savings Bank consolidated support onto Freshworks' AI-powered platform, the institution saw a 95% SLA resolution. Similarly, insurance giant Amerisure replaced the complexity of siloed legacy systems with a single Freshworks AI-powered platform across IT, legal, underwriting, and HR and saved more than 4,000 man hours in 2025, cutting employee onboarding resolution time by 97%. With complexity out of the way, the returns become real.
