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October 22, 2025
4 mins
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When I walked into the Global Fintech Fest this year, there was something different in the air.
Not just the energy or the scale of the event, but the collective realisation that the future of BFSI is no longer about apps, automation, or even digital transformation.
It’s about conversations.
Real, human-like, contextual conversations that build trust, drive revenue, and happen at the speed of AI.
Everywhere I went, one question kept surfacing: “What does AI really mean for customer experience in BFSI?”
And for the first time, it felt like we weren’t just chasing efficiency anymore. We were chasing better outcomes than humans.
Here are five things I took away from this year’s Global Fintech Fest that every BFSI leader should think deeply about.
For years, we’ve called AI a copilot.
This year, it became clear that AI is starting to fly the plane on its own.
At SquadStack, we’ve seen this shift happen firsthand.
Our Humanoid AI Agents are now running lakhs of conversations every day, qualifying leads, reminding customers about renewals, following up on documents, and doing it with context, emotion, and precision.
Watching a sales funnel execute itself end-to-end without human lag or leakage is both humbling and thrilling.
It’s a glimpse into what BFSI operations will look like in the near future: autonomous, reliable, and deeply customer-centric.
AI isn’t here to replace teams.
It’s here to make them faster, sharper, and infinitely scalable.
One of my favourite moments at GFF was during our “Human or AI” challenge at the booth.
Thousands of people tried to guess whether they were speaking to a human or our Humanoid AI Agent.
Less than 20% got it right.
But what stayed with me wasn’t the statistic. It was the look of disbelief on people’s faces when they realised they had just spoken to an AI.
It wasn’t about fooling anyone. It was about showing what’s possible when empathy meets intelligence.
That’s when it truly hit me: the future of CX won’t be defined by automation, but by connection.
When an AI can make a person feel understood, that’s when technology stops being a tool and starts being an experience.
If you’ve ever worked in BFSI, you know the lifeblood of the industry is its field force, millions of agents meeting customers every day across cities, towns, and villages.
But with fragmented CRMs, manual updates, and endless follow-ups, even the most motivated agent ends up constrained by the system.
Now, imagine every agent having a digital twin, a Voice AI assistant that reminds them of their schedule, updates CRMs automatically, nudges them on compliance, and even coaches them in real time.
That’s what we’ve been building, and it’s changing everything.
The result isn’t just efficiency. It’s empowerment.
It gives agents back the one thing they’ve always needed more of: time with their customers.
This is something I saw over and over again at the fest.
A customer from Haryana smiled when he heard an AI agent reply in Haryanvi. Another from Patna laughed when the AI switched mid-sentence between Hindi and English.
It reminded me that trust in Bharat doesn’t come from perfect diction. It comes from familiarity.
When STAGE achieved a 55% AI containment rate in local dialects like Haryanvi and Rajasthani, it wasn’t just a CX win. It was a cultural milestone.
Because personalisation isn’t just about knowing your customer’s name.
It’s about speaking their language, literally and emotionally.
In BFSI, the fear of uncontrolled AI is real and valid.
We handle sensitive data, regulated workflows, and customer trust that takes years to build.
But 2025 showed us that scale and safety don’t have to be at odds anymore.
The new generation of enterprise AI is built for BFSI: secure, auditable, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certified, and DND compliant by design.
It means leaders can now automate responsibly while ensuring every conversation is traceable, compliant, and outcome-driven.
This isn’t innovation for the sake of it. It’s innovation with guardrails.
As I left GFF this year, one thought stayed with me.
In the past, BFSI growth depended on reach, more branches, more agents, more calls.
Tomorrow, it will depend on understanding faster, deeper, and more human than ever.
Because when an AI can understand a borrower in Bareilly as well as it can a banker in Mumbai, and respond with the same level of care and clarity, we stop talking about automation and start talking about augmentation.
That’s where the future is headed.
And we’re just getting started.
