On 23 July, the White House released Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan (Executive Order 14179). Unlike most policy announcements, this one creates a near-term execution window for financial institutions - but that window will narrow quickly.
Market Context
- Embedded finance: $6.5 trillion market opportunity.
- Stablecoin flows: $2.5–$3 billion in daily settlement volumes.
- Open banking: >50% of customer touchpoints already API-enabled.
If AI is not integrated into these growth areas, competitive positioning will erode.
Policy Signals and Opportunities
The plan centres on:
- Accelerating AI innovation, including open-source models.
- Expanding infrastructure access via NAIRR (low-cost, high-performance compute).
- Demonstrating US leadership in AI development and governance.
For banks, this translates to access to advanced tools at significantly reduced cost, and a policy environment designed to lower the threshold for adoption - more than 90 discrete policy actions in scope.
Execution Gap
Agentic AI is already achieving measurable outcomes in financial services (e.g., 40% reduction in AML review times, multi-day reductions in customer onboarding). Technology is not the primary constraint.
Observed barriers include:
- Unclear ownership: prolonged sign-off cycles across multiple departments.
- Legacy systems: 80% of integrations stalling due to core platform limitations.
- Rising compliance costs: 60% of banks reporting AML/KYC expenditure growth.
- Regulatory divergence: state-level AI oversight tightening by 2026 (e.g., California, Colorado).
Critical Success Factors
Banks making measurable progress share common practices:
- A single accountable executive empowered to make adoption decisions.
- Time-bound proof-of-concepts (weeks, not months) under existing governance.
- Early regulatory engagement to influence compliance frameworks.
- Targeted investment in core system upgrades to enable AI integration.
Strategic Actions (Next 6 - 12 months)
- Appoint a programme driver – One senior leader with cross-silo authority.
- Run structured evaluations – Leverage production-like sandboxes and representative data.
- Upgrade integration readiness – Address architectural bottlenecks now to avoid deployment lag.
- Shape regulatory parameters – Engage with policymakers to align innovation with compliance.
Leadership Imperative
The White House projects AI as a core enabler of a $10T+ financial services market by 2030. The scale of the opportunity is not in dispute - but access to it will be uneven.
Institutions that capture early advantage will not necessarily be those with the largest budgets or most advanced labs. They will be the ones that:
- Move from proof-of-concept to production on compressed timelines.
- Build governance processes that enable, rather than delay, deployment.
- Position AI initiatives as core business priorities, tied to revenue, cost, or risk outcomes.
For senior leaders, the imperative is clear:
- Treat AI execution as a competitive differentiator in the same way you treat capital allocation or market expansion.
- Accept that delay is a strategic choice - one that transfers advantage to faster-moving competitors.
- Own the adoption mandate personally or delegate it to a single empowered executive; diffuse ownership will not deliver results.
This is where platforms like NayaOne change the equation. By providing production-like sandboxes, compliant synthetic data, and structured proof-of-concept frameworks, banks can test multiple AI solutions in parallel, generate regulator-ready evidence, and move to decision in weeks rather than quarters.
The Plan is in place. The infrastructure is becoming available. The regulatory window is temporarily open. The decision now is whether to shape the market - or be shaped by it.
