A Capgemini Research Institute report found that 59% of financial institutions are piloting or deploying multi-agent AI systems, but only 10% have achieved enterprise-wide orchestration.
The World Cloud Report for Financial Services 2027, based on a survey of 1,100 financial services executives, found that firms are moving from isolated AI agents towards systems coordinating tasks across banking and insurance workflows. Eight in ten executives identified reducing technology debt as a priority for scaling AI.
The focus of AI investment is also shifting towards business outcomes. By 2028, the number of executives prioritising outcomes as their main AI funding criterion is projected to rise by 141%, while those prioritising efficiency are expected to decline by 42%.
However, roughly half of firms cannot consistently demonstrate returns from agentic AI initiatives or have clear frameworks to assess their value. To manage costs and performance, 90% of firms are using or planning to implement intelligent model routing, which directs tasks to models based on cost and performance.
Cloud infrastructure is emerging as a key layer for managing multi-agent systems. The report found that 52% of banks and insurers prefer hyperscalers as cloud partners, citing requirements around regulatory compliance, data residency, security, identity management and auditability.
Three-quarters of respondents expect AI agents to play a key role in customer engagement within three years, particularly in account servicing, loan origination, underwriting and product recommendations.
The report also projects that hybrid sourcing combining in-house development, packaged solutions and external partners will become the dominant approach for more than two-thirds of financial institutions within three years. Only 5% of surveyed firms have institutionalised the capabilities needed to operate agentic AI at enterprise scale.
The findings point to a gap between growing adoption of multi-agent AI and the ability to orchestrate systems securely, govern their operations and demonstrate measurable business value.