ByChrister Holloman,
Senior Contributor.
While the public imagination has been captivated by the conversational abilities of chatbots, a new report from McKinsey & Company suggests the global banking industry is quietly approaching a far more profound transformation: the era of agentic AI.
According to the report, the banking sector is shifting from a period of broad experimentation to a paradigm shift defined by autonomous agents, systems capable of planning, executing multi-step workflows, and using tools with minimal human intervention. This transition represents the move from "hype" to "precision." It is no longer about the novelty of a machine that can write a poem; it is about the utility of a system that can autonomously reconcile a ledger or migrate a mortgage.
However, this technological leap comes with a stark warning. McKinsey predicts that while agentic AI could reduce bank unit costs by 15 to 20%, it also threatens to erode up to $170 billion in global profit pools by 2030 if banks fail to adapt their business models.
