Agentic AI In Financial Services: Former UBS And SAP Group CIO
CXOTalk, Friday, July 17th, 2026
Banks run dozens of AI pilots, but almost no AI agents in production, and the gap is in controls, not models. Former UBS Group CIO Oliver Bussmann outlines the key conditions that must be met before agents can go live.
Agentic AI in financial services faces a hard gap in 2026: banks run dozens of pilots, yet almost no agents reach production because an agent operating within a regulated institution needs identity, permissions, audit trails, and a human accountable for its actions. This discussion explores where agentic AI currently adds genuine value in financial services and what conditions must be met before granting an agent write access to critical systems.
Key Points:
- Why AI agents stall between pilot and production in banks, and why controls rather than model quality decide which agents go live.
- The control stack a regulated institution requires before agents can act includes identity verification, permissions, audit trails, and a human responsible for outcomes.
- Where agentic AI is already delivering results in financial services, and how leaders can tell real deployments from demos.