How nCino Helps Financial Institutions Address 4 Critical Areas for Successful AI Adoption
As we look towards 2025, many analysts and industry experts are sharing observations on the current state of artificial intelligence (AI) and their predictions for the future. As AI use cases continue to evolve across industries, it’s critical for financial institutions (FIs) to evaluate their own AI journeys. Are they ahead of, in step with, or falling behind their competitors?
The Evident AI Index helps FIs answer this question. A worldwide benchmark that focuses on the AI maturity of banks, Evident’s October 2024 report assesses how financial institutions are adapting, embracing, and leveraging AI in four areas: Talent, Innovation, Leadership, and Transparency.
Although nCino is not a financial institution, we are partners with over 1,800 FIs, including community banks, credit unions, independent mortgage banks, and the largest financial entities globally. Because nCino offers a trusted platform of best-in-class, intelligent solutions for the financial industry, these four AI pillars are just as important to us as they are to our customers. Here’s how nCino approaches AI for banking in each of these critical areas to help FIs find success in their AI strategies:
The talent sector of the Evident AI Index highlights the importance of attracting, retaining and nurturing top-notch AI talent. As automation powered by AI creates new opportunities and efficiencies within organizations, the banker’s role is evolving to favor digitally forward individuals who understand and embrace innovative technologies. At the same time, institutions as employers will need to adopt the latest tools to continue to attract top talent and remain magnets for ambitious professionals.
nCino embraces a similar mindset in our approach to talent. We have teams focused on developing data science and AI capabilities, and leverage AI experts in every department, from product engineering to marketing. We also host events throughout the year, such as our annual Hackathon, to encourage innovation and collaboration across our entire global organization, while supporting and fostering new ideas that push the financial industry forward.
The Index's innovation focuses on a bank's engagement with AI research, patents and ventures, as well as involvement with the open-source ecosystem. As FIs evolve their ecosystems to integrate AI, deeper integration between different parts of the bank offers new insights and actionable opportunities for organizations to grow and become more efficient.
For FIs who are committed to innovation, nCino is a natural partner. By integrating artificial intelligence and actionable insights into the nCino Platform, we help FIs enhance strategic decision-making, improve risk management, and elevate the customer experience by cohesively bringing together people, AI and data. This helps ensure our customers consistently leverage innovative solutions that drive exceptional value and long-term success. In a landscape where agility and adaptability define market leaders, embedding intelligence within nCino grants customers a decisive edge.
Leadership is another crucial area the Evident AI Index measures. Effective leadership in AI is crucial for initiating organizational change and nurturing a culture of innovation. This could take the shape of centralized AI capabilities in the form of a research lab, prioritizing long-term AI innovation investment (from research to patents, partnerships, acquisitions, and investments) and demonstrating consistent investment across various AI areas.
At nCino, our leadership in the AI space can be seen in our thought leadership activities, including white papers and webinars. Recent examples are our webinar “Intelligence Everywhere: A New Era of Efficiency in Banking,” in which industry experts evaluate AI strategies and assess the true ROI of integrating intelligence across the banking sector. Earlier this year, we also published a white paper titled “Transforming CIB Lending with Artificial Intelligence: Enhancing Efficiency and Decision-Making,” in which experts from nCino explore the significance of explainability and interpretability in AI models, and the importance of transparency, accountability, and human involvement when using AI in the financial services industry.
The transparency section of the Index assesses banks’ transparency in AI practices. Utilizing AI isn’t enough to be successful in a highly regulated industry such as financial services. Responsible use and transparency around an institution’s initiatives are vital for proving value to their stakeholders, creating trust with their customers, and ensuring compliance with regulations.
At nCino, transparency is built into our processes by design. For example, nCino Banking Advisor, which leverages Generative AI to improve banker efficiency, clearly identifies when a piece of information is generated by AI, encouraging a culture of trust and understanding about AI’s role in assisting users. Outputs generated by Banking Advisor include linked and quoted sources, allowing users to easily validate the response by referencing what Banking Advisor based its responses on. When it comes to nCino and AI, there is no “black box.” We provide explainability and create experiences that keep the human in control of the outcome.
When compared to the Evident AI Index findings, nCino ranks high in developing AI talent, driving innovation, showcasing leadership in AI strategy and promoting responsible, transparent AI practices. By integrating artificial intelligence and actionable insights into the nCino Platform, nCino is helping financial institutions consolidate legacy systems to enhance strategic decision-making, improve risk management and elevate customer satisfaction by cohesively bringing together people, AI and data—in 2025, and beyond.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are transforming how financial institutions approach many traditional banking processes. When it comes to AI in the financial services industry, the concept of explainability—i.e., the ability to clearly communicate the process behind AI’s decision-making and understand the model’s inner workings—is of the utmost importance.
Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing many traditional financial services, including credit decisioning. The evolution from traditional statistical models to AI-driven approaches marks a transformative shift in the financial industry. With AI integration, financial institutions will experience a fundamental change in how they assess and manage risk, ushering in a new era of efficiency and innovation.
The consumer lending market has seen monumental shifts over the last decade. From the rise of fintechs to new regulatory measures, these changes have reshaped how we borrow and lend. Understanding and responding to trends in the market is crucial for financial institutions of all sizes.
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how financial institutions (FIs) approach traditional banking processes, but not all FIs are prepared to take advantage of this game-changing technology. Leveraging AI is not a one-off task, but a continuous cycle of assessing, enhancing, and improving data quality for an effective strategy. For this reason, the journey AI optimization can seem daunting.
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are transforming how financial institutions approach credit decisions and traditional banking processes. By incorporating AI into the credit decisioning process, financial institutions can help create a more inclusive, intuitive, and impactful financial services landscape.
