Agentic AI in Financial Services: A Research Roundup for 2026

Agentic AI is shifting finance from scripted automation to multi-step, tool-using decision workflows—making governance and security the gating factors for scale. This roundup synthesizes recent research on where agents are already landing (KYC/AML, transaction monitoring, underwriting, portfolio support, and internal employee assistants). It also surfaces why production adoption lags: data readiness, interoperability gaps, tech debt, and rising privacy/cyber risk, including fraud and deepfake threats. Tech leaders should plan for auditability, human override, and fail-safes as first-class platform requirements.