FICO 2026: Analytics and AI Continue to Reshape Financial Services

Financial institutions are discovering that implementing artificial intelligence (AI) and getting value from it are two very different challenges. In 2026, AI will continue its shift from competitive advantage to core infrastructure in financial services, further reshaping how institutions detect increasingly sophisticated fraud, manage risk in real time, and deliver personalized customer experiences at scale.

But while 96% of organizations report AI-driven productivity gains, only 56% see significant measurable financial improvements (EY US AI Pulse Survey, 2025). As AI systems become more autonomous and deeply embedded in decision-making, trust, governance, and human judgment will emerge as critical differentiators. Organizations that succeed in 2026 will be those that pair the power and pace of AI with responsible oversight and proven decision frameworks.

Now in 2026 and looking ahead, FICO's leadership team has identified four key trends that will shape financial services this year and define how institutions compete securely and confidently deploy AI: 

Focused sequence models will revolutionize transaction analytics

In the largest technology leap in three decades, low-latency, high-throughput decisions will be enabled by focused sequence models (FSMs) that ingest entire transaction histories in real-time, rather than by using traditional recursive profiling, providing unprecedented customer personalization and insight. 

FSMs uniquely address long-range transaction sequences to find critical relationships in customer histories typically not captured in traditional analytics systems. 

Most systems to date analyze customer transactions in isolation or use rigid, limited-coverage measures of transaction histories––such as statistics like average spending, frequency patterns, and geographic tendencies––over different time and event scales. This approach misses the entirety of behavioral sequences that distinguish legitimate customers from sophisticated fraudsters, now afforded by ingesting the entire transaction history. - FICO Chief Analytics Officer, Scott Zoldi 

GenAI-driven scams will intensify in 2026

AI has fundamentally shifted the fraud battlefield. A single bad actor can now act at unprecedented scale, using GenAI to impersonate trusted contacts and roles using AI-generated voice clones, create realistic identity documents, and execute personalized, targeted phishing and scam campaigns. The threat has accelerated rapidly, as BCG's recent global survey shows 60% of companies faced AI-enabled attacks in the past year, with fraudsters executing attacks in seconds rather than hours. 

Reactive monitoring systems are structurally inadequate when criminals operate at machine speed. While traditional third-party transactional fraud detection can mitigate parts of the growing threat landscape, there are still critical vulnerabilities across vectors like identity verification, non-monetary transactions, and authorized push payments across the banking ecosystem.

Banks must understand the speed with which fraudsters can now operate and commit to a proactive mitigation approach. This is best done by investing in modern infrastructure with enhanced capabilities that monitor every customer interaction in real time, and feeding that intelligence into a dynamic customer profile that informs the fraud decisioning across products, portfolios, and channels. Winning the fight against fraud will also require hyper‑personalized communication strategies that engage customers instantly through their preferred channels (text, app notifications, email) to verify and intervene against suspicious activity before financial losses occur. - FICO Vice President of Fraud Product Management, TJ Horan 

CIOs are the New Change Agents for Leadership Today  

Enterprise AI has reached a complexity threshold that transcends traditional departmental boundaries, creating organizational challenges that no single function can solve alone. Agentic AI agents that make autonomous decisions spanning customer service, financial operations, and strategic planning require governance frameworks that extend far beyond IT infrastructure into comprehensive business transformation. According to CIO.com's 2025 State of the CIO Survey, 75% of CIOs are now prioritizing AI initiatives above all other technology investments, with mounting pressure to deliver measurable business value from AI. Yet, FICO’s State of Responsible AI in Financial Services: Unlocking Business Value at Scale study revealed that 95% of organizations report a lack of alignment between AI initiatives and business goals. This gap suggests the CIO role demands leaders who can architect enterprise-wide change rather than manage isolated technology deployments.

Modern CIOs have evolved from traditional IT operators into strategic business leaders who drive organizational growth through business strategy, AI, cybersecurity, and innovation initiatives. As Agentic AI agents become integrated into the workforce, CIOs are positioned as key change agents who will shape how businesses execute their operations and adapt to this technological transformation. - FICO Chief Information Officer, Mike Trkay  

Human Oversight Is Essential to Building Strong Cyber Defense Technology

AI has fundamentally transformed the cybersecurity battlefield. Attackers now have tools for personalized phishing generation, deepfake creation, and automated malware production at an unprecedented scale and execution speed. Organizations are responding decisively, as 41% of those experiencing AI-driven productivity gains reinvest specifically in cybersecurity capabilities (EY US AI Pulse Survey, 2025).

Automated AI defense systems face inherent vulnerabilities including model poisoning attacks and AI hallucinations that compromise detection accuracy. Current cybersecurity approaches rely heavily on automated detection and response mechanisms while underestimating human validation requirements for complex threat assessment, creating accountability gaps when systems must explain decisions to regulators and stakeholders.

AI is now central to cybersecurity defense, but companies cannot stand behind technology alone. As generative threats evolve faster than automated safeguards, trust hinges on advanced systems working in the loop with vigilant human oversight. The winners won't be those with the most powerful algorithms, but those who blend machine speed with human judgment. - FICO Chief Information Security Officer, Ben Nelson  

The financial institutions that will lead in 2026 won't be those with the most sophisticated AI—they'll be those that deploy AI with the most sophisticated judgment. The technology exists today to process transactions in milliseconds, detect fraud before it happens, and personalize every customer interaction.

The question is whether institutions will implement these capabilities thoughtfully or reactively, with governance or without it, as a strategic advantage or a compliance requirement.

As 2026 unfolds, the organizations that embrace this balanced approach to AI deployment will not only navigate the year's challenges successfully but will also set the standard for what responsible AI looks like in financial services for years to come.

How FICO Can Help You Navigate 2026

• Learn more at FICO Responsible AI

• Explore FICO Platform

• See customers discuss their use of FICO Platform

• Read Tech Trends: Decision Intelligence, Business Composability, and Context-Aware Computing