New FICO and Corinium Study Reveals Global Financial Institutions Abandon GenAI Hype for Responsible AI Standards

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09/04/2025 - 08:00 AM

The survey reveals key forces driving AI investment, cross-functional alignment, operational readiness, risk oversight, and platform innovation across the enterprise

BOZEMAN, Mont.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- FICO (NYSE: FICO):

Highlights:

More than 56% of CAOs and CAIOs define Responsible AI standards as a leading contributor to increasing ROI, outpacing technologies like GenAI (40%).
Over 75% of those surveyed believe collaboration between business and IT leaders and a shared AI platform could drive ROI gains of 50% or more.
95% of respondents report lack of alignment between AI initiatives and business goals.

Global analytics software leader FICO today announced its State of Responsible AI in Financial Services: Unlocking Business Value at Scale global report, developed in collaboration with Corinium Global Intelligence. The report chronicles AI’s evolution, tracing how enterprises have transitioned from experimental phases to value creation, to the strategic emphasis on realigning efforts toward maturity, trust, and quantifiable returns on investment.

Conducted by Corinium, the report surveyed more than 250 C-Suite financial services leaders, including Chief Analytics/AI Officers (CAO and CAIO), Chief Technology Officers (CTO), and Chief Information Officers (CIO) who are focused on AI, data, IT, and technology. Leaders were asked to evaluate their organizations' current capabilities, challenges, and plans regarding adopting Responsible AI.

Responsible AI Standards Drive Competitive Differentiation

“Responsible AI extends beyond risk mitigation—it's a business imperative. Over half of CAOs and CAIOs (56%) believe that implementing Responsible AI standards will significantly impact ROI,” said Dr. Scott Zoldi, chief analytics officer at FICO. “Meanwhile, human-AI collaboration is key, with 44% of surveyed leaders identifying it as an exciting area for future development. To ensure accountability and reduce AI hallucinations, organizations must clearly define the boundaries and interactions between human oversight and AI capabilities.”

Only 40% pointed to Generative AI (GenAI) and large language models (LLMs) as a major contender for bottom-line ROI improvement. Of the participants, CAOs and CAIOs stated decision intelligence platforms are a top investment priority, as well as a critical system for operationalizing AI across the business. These systems emphasize explainability, traceability, and integration with business processes.

CIOs and CTOs report that only 12% of organizations have fully integrated AI operational standards. This gap represents a significant opportunity for improvement across the industry with a critical emphasis on implementing Responsible AI standards. These standards, such as bias mitigation, performance monitoring, and secure data handling, are the foundation of Responsible AI.

In addition, the data shows that organizations are increasingly wary of over-indexing GenAI and agentic AI without a plan for measurable business implementation. Furthermore, 11% of participants respond to agentic AI technology with concerns of unpredictability, instability, and technical immaturity.

“By focusing on technologies that enhance strategic decision-making and trust, today’s businesses are heralding the arrival of a mature AI landscape that places more importance on accountability and oversight and less on hype-driven investments,” said Paola Leites de Moraes, production director for Financial Services at Corinium.

Unified Decisioning Platforms Could Unlock Significant ROI for AI Investments

Over 75% of those surveyed believe collaboration between business and IT leaders and a shared AI platform could drive ROI gains of 50% or more. Traditionally, most organizations have functioned in silos across different teams and roles to build models, test, and monitor. This fragmented approach creates duplicated efforts, inconsistent standards, and potentially critical blind spots in performance, risk, and accountability. Adopting a unified AI decisioning platform mitigates these issues by consolidating the AI lifecycle into a collaborative environment.

“From my perspective, the lack of a unified platform and process often leads to duplicated efforts, inconsistent tooling, and misaligned priorities. AI initiatives may be technically sound but fail to scale or integrate due to infrastructure gaps or unclear ownership,” said Barbara Widholm, vice president of Automation and AI at State Street.

Traditional Silos are Limiting Potential

Only 5% of CAOs and CAIOs surveyed report full alignment across AI investments, development efforts, infrastructure, and end-user strategy business goals. That means nearly 95% of organizations are having a difficult time developing AI systems.

To move from proof-of-concept to profit, organizations must align their people, processes, and platforms. This requires breaking down silos and avoiding isolated AI efforts across teams. It also means ensuring AI is integrated into a strategic defined plan. Given the complexity of building and deploying AI, success hinges on understanding the distinct roles and responsibilities involved in building and implementing AI solutions that deliver tangible business impact.

The findings from the FICO and Corinium State of Responsible AI in Financial Services: Unlocking Business Value at Scale underscore a key insight: unlocking AI’s full value requires not just better models, but stronger standards, smarter systems, and deeper collaboration.

To download the full report, visit: https://www.fico.com/en/latest-thinking/survey-results/2025-state-responsible-ai-financial-services-unlocking-business-value-scale

About FICO

FICO (NYSE: FICO) powers decisions that help people and businesses around the world prosper. Founded in 1956, the company is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. FICO holds more than 200 US and foreign patents on technologies that increase profitability, customer satisfaction and growth for businesses in financial services, insurance, telecommunications, health care, retail and many other industries. Using FICO solutions, businesses in more than 80 countries do everything from protecting four billion payment cards from fraud, to improving financial inclusion, to increasing supply chain resiliency. The FICO® Score, used by 90% of top US lenders, is the standard measure of consumer credit risk in the US and has been made available in over 40 other countries, improving risk management, credit access and transparency.

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