The AI Tipping Point: What Financial Leaders Need to Know for 2025

AI is proving that it’s here to stay. While 2023 brought panic and wonder, and 2024 saw widespread experimentation, 2025 will be the year that financial services enterprises get serious about AI's applications. But it’s complicated: AI proofs of concept are graduating from the sandbox to production, just as some of AI’s biggest cheerleaders are turning a bit dour. 

How to navigate such a landscape is top of mind for me and top executives such as Snowflake’s CEO, Sridhar Ramaswamy, Snowflake’s Distinguished AI Engineer, Yuxiong Xe, and other industry-specific experts who weighed in on the Snowflake AI + Data Predictions 2025 report. From operationalizing AI to rewriting your leadership skill set, we’re predicting what an AI-accelerated future might look like (and what might happen if organizations don’t get their foundational data strategies in place to be part of it). 

We dive into how AI adoption and anticipated regulatory challenges will affect financial services in years to come. The industry’s approach will be more measured, balancing innovation with clear, demonstrable business value. One of the big issues is how willing the tech-forward financial industry will be to bet on very new, entirely unproven AI solutions.

For the rest of the financial services predictions and more, download the report Snowflake AI + Data Predictions 2025.

I see AI adding value in two ways across financial services organizations: augmenting workers and operating autonomously without human involvement. The latter will remain in the experimentation stage for some time with too high a risk of negative customer outcomes hurting the bottom line. 

The board is going to care about ROI, of course, but not without safeguarding the organization. Naturally, regulators are also vigilant about protecting firms, consumers and the financial system — hampering any ultra-fast-paced rollouts organizations might have in the works. 

Read the full report for the rest of my 2025 financial services predictions, insights from six other industry leaders and the latest big-picture data and AI forecasts from leaders such as Baris Gultekin, Snowflake’s Head of AI, and Brad Jones, Snowflake’s Chief Information Security Officer.