Banks and credit unions that leverage AI are more likely to believe their contact center is a meaningful contributor to their customer experience strategy.

A survey from Talkdesk found 80% of banks and credit unions that use AI believe this, compared to just 20% of those that don’t use AI.

The survey also found almost all banks and credit unions (98%) have made customer experience a strategic priority in the past year, with 83% viewing it as a main driver of customer loyalty.

Over half the respondents (56%) expect their company will increase investment in customer experience technology by 10% or more over the next three years, with AI being the most popular initiative.

The top three AI investments include: analyzing contact center data for actionable discoveries and insights (83%), optimizing chatbot or guided conversations (73%) and virtual customer assistants for self-service (66%).

The survey found 73% of financial institutions were not able use AI in their customer service strategies, with the largest barrier cited as resistance to change (66%), followed by insufficient availability of personnel to maintain it (63%). Larger organizations are also concerned about lack of quality data (74%).

Tiago Paiva, chief executive officer and founder of Talkdesk, said: “Customer experience strategy must incorporate responsible, AI-driven digital capabilities alongside human support to optimize every step in the customer journey and personalize experiences, otherwise some banks and credit unions–particularly smaller ones–will quickly start to get left behind.”

In June, the American Bankers Association (ABA) called for banks already using AI to be taken into account when AI regulations are introduced, to ensure their operations are not disrupted.