A survey by cloud-service provider Zeta reveals that while 70% of Chief Digital Officers at Indian banks and non-bank financial companies are piloting artificial intelligence, only 30% have successfully deployed the technology at scale. Adoption remains heavily concentrated in customer service, fraud and risk analytics, document processing, and software testing. In contrast, integrating AI into end-to-end operational workflows and critical decision-making processes remains in its infancy, with most surveyed institutions directing less than 10% of their new technology spend toward AI projects.

Despite these budget constraints and deployment hurdles, operational leaders report strong early returns in specific business units. According to the study, 88% of Chief Operating Officers view retail lending as the primary domain where AI is driving meaningful impact, followed by customer service (75%) and back-office operations (63%).

However, data infrastructure continues to pose a challenge for widespread implementation across the sector. While 80% of respondents describe their data environments as largely prepared for large-scale AI integration, zero institutions evaluated themselves as fully ready, pointing to ongoing structural work needed before AI can be seamlessly embedded across Indian financial services.

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