FICO warns the AI readiness gap is widening faster than adoption
Companies across the financial services sector are investing in artificial intelligence at a pace unthinkable five years ago, and those investments continue to grow each quarter.
Yet a growing body of research suggests the enthusiasm outstrips the infrastructure, governance, and organizational readiness needed to turn those investments into measurable financial returns for shareholders and customers alike.
FICO, the analytics software company best known for its consumer credit scores used by 90% of top U.S. lenders, released findings that paint a stark picture of this disconnect.
The FICO and Corinium study finds 95% of AI programs lack business alignment
The 2025 State of Responsible AI in Financial Services: Unlocking Business Value at Scale report, released September 4, 2025, and conducted by Corinium Global Intelligence in collaboration with FICO, surveyed 254 C-suite financial services leaders in the second quarter of 2025, including chief analytics officers, chief AI officers, chief technology officers, and chief information officers focused on AI, data, IT, and technology.
The findings revealed that 95% of respondents reported a lack of alignment between their organizations' AI initiatives and their stated business goals, with only 5% of chief analytics and chief AI officers confirming full alignment across investments, development efforts, infrastructure, and end-user strategy, the report indicated.
That misalignment means companies are building AI systems that may function at a technical level but fail to deliver revenue growth, cost savings, or risk reduction that show up in quarterly earnings, with direct implications for investors closely watching the sector.
"Responsible AI extends beyond risk mitigation; it's a business imperative," said Dr. Scott Zoldi, FICO's chief analytics officer, in the press release announcing the report. Zoldi is a named inventor on more than 130 active and pending FICO patents in AI and analytics.
FICO research reveals responsible AI standards outperform generative AI for ROI
The study, titled State of Responsible AI in Financial Services: Unlocking Business Value at Scale, also uncovered a surprising finding about how financial institutions rank different types of AI by their ability to drive bottom-line returns on technology investments.
By focusing on technologies that enhance strategic decision-making and trust, today's businesses are heralding the arrival of a mature AI landscape that places more importance on accountability and oversight and less on hype-driven investments
More than 56% of chief analytics and chief AI officers identified responsible AI standards, including bias mitigation, performance monitoring, and secure data handling, as the leading contributor to increasing ROI, the report found. Only 40% pointed to generative AI and large language models as a major driver of bottom-line improvement, FICO noted.
For investors and consumers watching the financial sector's AI transformation, those numbers suggest that companies chasing the flashiest generative AI tools without governance infrastructure may be falling behind peers that prioritize accountability and operational discipline in their deployment strategies.
Only 12% of organizations have fully integrated AI operational standards
The operational readiness gap extends well beyond strategic planning into the day-to-day systems that financial institutions use to build, deploy, and monitor their AI models across business lines and customer-facing applications, the FICO study showed.
Chief information officers and chief technology officers surveyed in the report confirmed that only 12% of organizations have fully integrated AI operational standards. This includes consistent frameworks for bias testing, audit trails, performance tracking, and compliance with regulatory guidance such as the Federal Reserve's SR 11-7 and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's joint SR 11-7 supervisory guidance on model risk management.
More AI:
- Micron sits at the center of a red-hot chip rally
- IBM CEO sends blunt message on AI and quantum computing
- Anthropic CEO makes shocking admission about AI
"AI initiatives may be technically sound but fail to scale or integrate due to infrastructure gaps or unclear ownership," said Barbara Widholm, vice president of Automation and AI at State Street, in the report. A separate measure of overall AI readiness shows a similarly small leadership cohort.
Cisco's 2025 AI Readiness Index, the third annual edition of the study, surveyed 8,000 senior IT and business leaders across 30 markets and 26 industries and found that only 13% of organizations, which Cisco calls "Pacesetters," qualify as fully AI-ready, a share that has held at 13% in both 2024 and 2025, down one point from 14% in the inaugural 2023 index.
Unified AI platforms could unlock 50% or greater ROI gains for financial firms
The FICO and Corinium study pointed to a potential solution that could address the fragmentation plaguing most financial institutions' AI deployments and help close the gap between spending and tangible financial performance.
More than 75% of the executives surveyed said they believe collaboration between business and IT leaders, combined with a shared AI platform, could drive ROI gains of 50% or more, the report found.
The study also flagged growing caution about agentic AI, the emerging category of autonomous AI systems that can make decisions across customer service, financial operations, and strategic planning without direct human supervision at every step.
Approximately 11% of participants expressed concerns about agentic AI's unpredictability, instability, and technical immaturity, FICO noted.
Zoldi argued in the report that the financial institutions best positioned to capture AI's value are not the ones moving fastest, but the ones investing in governance, standards, and cross-functional collaboration alongside their AI deployments.
FICO stock has declined by over 33% in 2026 amid broader tech sector pressure
FICO shares have faced significant headwinds in 2026. The stock closed at $1,092 on May 11, with a market capitalization of approximately $25.3 billion, down 33.4% year-to-date, according to FinanceCharts. Shares are down approximately 50% from their 52-week high of $2,217.60, reached on May 19, 2025.
The company reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $691.7 million, a 39% increase from $498.7 million in the same period a year earlier, driven in large part by a 127% surge in mortgage origination revenue, FICO disclosed in its Q2 FY2026 earnings release on April 28, 2026.
Despite the stock's decline, 13 analysts covering FICO maintain an average price target of $1,715, implying roughly 57% upside from the May 11 close, according to StockAnalysis data.
FICO's research positions the company at the center of the industry's readiness challenge, and whether financial institutions close the AI alignment gap could determine both the sector's performance and FICO's own growth trajectory in the coming quarters.
Related: The global AI race is now moving into banking and payments
The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
This story was originally published May 24, 2026 at 1:33 PM.