How a financial services organization is transforming its business with AI at the core

The challenge

Our client, a leading financial services organization, had a clear ambition to achieve significant cost savings through AI across its business. An earlier assessment had indicated potential annual cost savings in the tens of millions, providing a strong starting point, but operational clarity was needed to translate this ambition into actual savings. The challenge was to move from exploring AI’s potential to executing the initiatives that would deliver measurable results.

In order to realize the projected savings, we first analyzed the organization’s core processes. This allowed us to identify, prioritize, and implement concrete AI use cases. The result was an AI roadmap that accounted for regulatory constraints, technical feasibility, dependencies between use cases and technical requirements, as well as the time required for organizational change.

The approach

In collaboration with the client, we applied our pragmatic, process-driven AI Design Sprint Framework. The initiative was supported by the client’s AI Unit, and positioned as a strategic transformation across the whole organization. This ensured that AI efforts were directly tied to concrete processes in each domain and translated into tangible use cases.

First, we assessed the organization’s AI maturity and mapped more than 30 end-to-end processes to build a robust fact base. A C-level survey had already captured more than 300 AI use case ideas, but these varied widely in maturity and lacked validation. We translated them into a structured backlog, mapped each idea to a specific value stream to build a use case heatmap and identify white spots.

Next, we ran AI Design Sprint workshops across value streams with limited use case coverage and/or high AI automation potential, varying the depth from broad opportunity mapping to full end-to-end process redesign depending on each stream’s potential. The result was a total of 430 assessed and validated, prioritized use cases grounded in real process data and tied directly to measurable business impact.

The resulting roadmap incorporated pilot phases, implementation lead times, and the organizational change curve. It also recognized that departments operate under different constraints. While finance and HR required incremental improvements within regulatory boundaries, functions such as customer service and marketing offered opportunities for broader redesigns in which AI could orchestrate workflows across multiple systems.

The result

The project resulted in the delivery of a board-ready AI roadmap for the next 5 years. By validating the projected return on investment and grounding it in operational reality, we translated executive ambition into a concrete value creation plan. The outcome is a clearly defined path to realizing over $50 million in savings, supported by around 30 prioritized use cases in 2026 alone, and more in the years leading up to 2030.

The roadmap provides transparency on when and where business units will see changes and value realization, enabling the client to align resources, expectations, and leadership priorities. Following the roadmap phase, our client is now moving into the implementation of multiple AI use cases at scale. This marked the transition from strategic exploration to a structured, multi-year transformation program. Both the long-term vision and the foundation for immediate implementation were firmly established.

About the client

Our client is a leading European financial services company.