AI-native engineering can accelerate financial services workflow, study finds

xNearly every sector in the economy is embracing AI, and for certain industries, like financial services, there’s a focus on ensuring the technology is handed to the proper talent, with an eye toward accelerating adoption.

That’s also widening the divide between AI-native engineers and those on staff who are still learning to use the technology. A recent survey from engineering talent acquisition company Karat found that the differences in productivity and engineering quality can be quite stark, with 73% of US tech leaders reporting that strong AI engineers are worth 3-times their compensation.

In line. As Karat CEO Mohit Bhende told IT Brew, financial services executives want to build their own AI-ready workforce but are lagging behind other industries. While that’s left them a bit on the back foot, it’s not insurmountable—especially given AI’s potential for streamlining workflows.

“I hear a lot from customers in financial services, CIOs and CTOs who have talked for decades about this monstrous backlog that they have of work and old languages and coded logic from like 20, 30, 40 years ago,” Bhende said. “There’s a huge opportunity with AI to get ahead of it and modernize much faster.”

Financial services play a critical role in the banking industry, but that’s also holding them back when it comes to AI integration. Coding errors can have regulatory impacts, for example, especially if there are improper wire transfers.

“There is a shortage of enough engineers on the planet who can interoperate with AI, build with AI, but—especially in the financial services space—implement what I would call human judgment and decision-making so that money gets transferred to the right place,” Bhende said. “That is a top-of-mind thing for a lot of bank and insurance leaders, because of just how mission-critical IT is the product that they work on, they have no room for error to get it wrong.”

Opportunity knocks. For financial services, like any industry, AI’s importance has risen alongside its capabilities.

As IT Brew reported, tech firms are looking at a number of different options to solve the AI talent shortfall, including upskilling existing staff.

Engineers can deploy AI for drudgery, Bhende said, the kind of repetitive tasks that can take up time. That opens the door for more opportunities.

“These engineers who can leverage AI to do more now suddenly have superpowers that they didn’t have before to get a lot more work done faster and produce more products, especially in the tech industry, but also in the FinServ industry, especially as they compete with a lot of the fintechs,” Bhende said.