It was a rainy, gray day in New York City, the kind of weather that makes you question your shoe choices and long for an extra cup of tea. But inside the AWS Financial Services Analyst Summit, the mood was anything but gloomy.
The stories, insights, and conversations shared throughout the day were full of energy, ambition, and clarity, lifting the spirit and offering a clear view of the road ahead for the industry.
I was fortunate to attend this thoughtfully curated event, designed to foster in-depth dialogue with AWS leadership, financial services clients, and ecosystem partners. A special thank you to Andrew Ranzella, Mamta Shah, and Steven Wong for the kind invitation and for crafting a program that delivered both substance and depth.
The day-long dialogue highlighted a significant shift: financial services enterprises are moving beyond cloud migration. They are now focused on how to maximize value from the cloud, operationalize Artificial Intelligence (AI) at scale, and build intelligent systems that drive real and sustainable enterprise transformation. Below are my key takeaways.
Evolving the cloud narrative: From “journey to the cloud” to “journey in the cloud”
The industry’s cloud journey has entered a new phase. Over the past decade, firms have prioritized moving applications, data, and platforms to the cloud. Now, the conversation is less about “how to migrate” and more about “how to optimize.”
Organizations are revisiting past cloud investments to evaluate what’s working, what needs to be re-architected, and how to better leverage the cloud to extract tangible business value. The focus is now firmly on governance, scalability, resilience, security, performance, and user-centric outcomes.
Embedding AI into core business processes
Financial institutions such as Citi, Nasdaq, Bank United, DTCC, Citizens Bank, and Principal Financial presented their case studies, as to how they have moved beyond experimenting with AI at the edges. They are embedding it into mission-critical workflows, driving tangible outcomes across functions such as:
- Financial crime and compliance
- Treasury and trade services
- Claims processing
- Contract lifecycle management
- Regulatory reporting and summarization
This shift is enabling smarter decisions, faster execution, and more adaptive enterprise operations.
The barriers to scale remain real
Despite growing maturity, financial services organizations still face several persistent challenges:
- Legacy infrastructure and mainframe systems that limit flexibility
- Technology sprawl, making integration and rationalization difficult
- Data fragmentation, lack of strategy, and inconsistent quality
- Change management and executive sponsorship gaps that inhibit scaled transformation
These roadblocks highlight the need for targeted investment in enterprise architecture, data governance, and cultural readiness.
The ecosystem multiplier: AWS as a co-creation platform
AWS’s emphasis on ecosystem collaboration was evident throughout the summit. Notable examples included:
- AIG’s partnership with Anthropic, Palantir, and AWS to address complex data and risk challenges
- AWS and NVIDIA working together to improve AI model efficiency and performance
- Infosys and Citizens Bank collaborating on large-scale cloud modernization
These partnerships illustrate how value is increasingly co-created, not just delivered, and how AWS is acting as a platform that connects technology with enterprise outcomes.
AI as a revenue enabler
While operational efficiency remains a major driver, AI is also emerging as a growth catalyst. Two standout cases include:
- Citibank, where AI is being used to transform trade finance and treasury operations into differentiated revenue-generating offerings
- NASDAQ’s Eqlipse Intelligence, which is creating commercial value by delivering customized, industry-focused data solutions to clients
These use cases demonstrate the evolving business case for AI, from cost takeout to top-line impact.
Talent and organizational models are evolving
A consistent theme across the event was the role of AI as a workforce enabler, not a job eliminator. AI helps employees focus on high-value work, improve quality, and deliver better outcomes.
DTCC expects around US$20 million in productivity-led savings by using Amazon Q developer for their software development teams. Investments in training and experimentation have now seen 50%+ of developers becoming high frequency users of the technology, highlighting the importance of incentivizing AI adoption by employees.
As Jonathan Pelosi from Anthropic noted, organizations that democratize access to AI tools and train each employee to use them effectively will lead the pack. The shift will require new organizational models, cross-functional collaboration, and sustained investment in upskilling.
Final thoughts: Building Systems of Action (SoA)
The financial services industry has made significant investments in cloud, data, and process transformation over the past decade. These investments are now converging to enable what we refer to as systems of action, AI-powered, secure, and compliant enterprise workflows that are deeply embedded into core processes.
These systems are characterized by:
- Activated and contextualized data
- Embedded decision intelligence
- Seamless orchestration of tasks and workflows
- Built-in security and regulatory compliance
This next phase is about operationalizing AI at scale, not just as a tool, but as an engine of continuous, intelligent execution. The journey these institutions have taken to get here is complex, strategic, and inspiring. We look forward to tracking their progress and sharing more stories of innovation, impact, and industry leadership.
If you found this blog interesting, check out our Systems Of Action In Healthcare: Enabling Autonomous Patient Experiences And Streamlined Administration | Blog – Everest Group, which delves deeper into another topic regarding Systems of Action.
Our recently published Systems of Action (SoA) in Reinsurance: Enabling Intelligent, Real-time Operations report is also available to read via Everest Group Reports – View.
We are also hosting a BFSI’s New Value Frontier: Systems Of Action For Tech And Tech Services | Webinar – Everest Group on May 20, please register your interest now via the link provided.
If you have any questions or want to discuss AWS, Systems of Action, and the latest goings on in the Banking, Financial and Insurance world in more depth, please contact Ronak Doshi ([email protected]).
