By Luke Smith, Principal Consultant
Gartner predicts that more than 40 percent of agentic AI projects will fail or be cancelled by the end of 2027, due to escalating costs, unclear business value and inadequate risk controls.
For leaders responsible for growth and customer value in financial services, this should be interpreted not as a technology issue, but a marketing and transformation one.
Across banking and insurance, AI is increasingly positioned as a tool to unlock personalisation at scale, improve customer engagement and drive lifetime value. Yet when these initiatives stall or are quietly deprioritised, the impact is felt first in customer outcomes. Journeys remain fragmented, interactions feel generic and growth slows, with the link between investment and return becoming harder to explain. The problem is not ambition – it is execution.
What we see consistently across financial services organisations is not insufficient data or intent, but a lack of alignment between customer strategy, decisioning and execution. AI is often introduced as a new capability without addressing the fundamentals of how marketing actually operates day to day.
Personalisation is deployed without a clear view of which customer behaviours drive value. Success is measured in platform adoption rather than customer outcomes. Data, decisioning and content operate in parallel rather than as a single system. Teams struggle to keep pace with the demands of real-time engagement. When pressure increases, whether from cost control, regulation or shifting priorities, these programmes lack the commercial clarity needed to survive. That is exactly the failure pattern Gartner is highlighting.
In financial services, growth is cumulative. It is built through consistent, relevant interactions across the customer lifecycle, from acquisition and onboarding through to servicing, cross-sell and retention. When AI investments do not materially improve those interactions, customers notice. Experiences feel disconnected. Messaging lacks relevance. Decisions lag behind behaviour.
From a marketing leader’s perspective, this creates a credibility gap. AI is live, but the experience does not feel transformed. The board asks where the value is coming from, and the answers are often too technical or too vague. At that point, AI stops being seen as a growth lever and starts being seen as cost and risk.
The shift required is from deploying AI capabilities to redesigning how customer value is created, measured and sustained. The organisations that succeed with AI in financial services start with the outcomes that matter most. They are explicit about which moments in the customer journey influence growth, how decisioning needs to change to improve those moments, and how data and content must support real-time engagement. AI becomes part of a broader marketing transformation rather than a standalone initiative. Journeys, decision logic and operating models are designed together. Teams are clear on ownership. Measurement is aligned to commercial outcomes the business recognises.
For marketing transformation leaders, the real test of AI is not innovation, but impact. Leaders need to be able to demonstrate improved acquisition efficiency, show measurable uplift in retention or lifetime value, and explain clearly and confidently how investment is translating into growth. When those questions are answered, AI earns long-term support. When they are not, it remains vulnerable.
Gartner’s prediction reflects a wider truth we see across financial services. AI initiatives fail when they are treated as technology programmes. They succeed when they are treated as growth programmes. Marketing transformation sits at the centre of that shift. By aligning data, decisioning and customer journeys around clear value outcomes, organisations can turn AI from an experiment into a sustained driver of performance. Growth does not come from intelligence alone. It comes from how intelligently organisations choose to apply it.
Key takeaways for financial services leaders:
- AI failure should be understood as a growth problem rather than a technology problem, because stalled initiatives erode customer value and undermine confidence in return on investment
- Marketing transformation is where AI either delivers impact or quietly fails, as misalignment between customer strategy, decisioning and execution limits real-world results
- Customer value must be deliberately designed into AI initiatives through clear links to acquisition, retention and lifetime value, measured in commercial terms
- Adoption and operating model change matter as much as technology, since teams, processes and ownership determine whether AI capabilities are sustained or sidelined
- The organisations that succeed shift from deploying AI capabilities to redesigning how customer value is created, measured and sustained
Source: Gartner, Press Release, June 2025. “Gartner Predicts Over 40% of Agentic AI Projects Will Be Cancelled by End of 2027.”
