The world is being shaped by the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. What was once hype has now evolved into an AI super-cycle, with unprecedented levels of investment and adoption transforming both competitiveness and innovation. Institutions are moving from pilots and proofs of concept to enterprise-scale deployments, shifting the focus from experimentation to tangible value creation - driving efficiency, inclusion, and new revenue streams. At the same time, leaders must navigate talent gaps, data, and infrastructure, while ensuring that governance, responsibility, and resilience remain at the core of AI adoption. In this context, BCG, as the thought leadership partner of the Global Fintech Fest 2025 (GFF), has launched the flagship report – “Convergence: Human + AI for the Next Era of Finance”.
The report is organized into four chapters. The first chapter of this report, The Human + AI Frontier: Global and Local, situates the AI super-cycle alongside past technological inflection points. It illustrates how AI can transform everyday life and business operations through conceptual applications such as JanArth.AI, a personal finance management app priced at ₹150–250/month today and potentially as low as ₹50/month within 3–4 years and VyaparSaathi.AI, a CFO-like companion for MSMEs. These examples highlight the inclusive potential of AI when built on India’s population-scale digital public infrastructure.
The second chapter, AI for India: Opportunity and Imperatives, explores how India can leverage its trifecta advantage as the world’s largest AI consumer market, the leading use-case playground, and a global execution hub. It sets out key imperatives across the AI stack such as scaling infrastructure and compute, expanding ethical data commons like AIKosh, creating domain-specific models, unlocking ₹10 lakh crore of patient capital, investing in AI talent, and embedding AI applications at scale. Together, these priorities position India to generate $100–120 billion in AI software & services revenue by 2028.
The third chapter, Finance.AI and the Voice of Industry, captures the perspectives of BFSI leaders, founders, policymakers, and investors. While leading financial institutions are achieving 20–25% cost efficiencies and 10–20% revenue uplift through AI, only 27% of banks are future-ready. The report lays out a 10-point blueprint for BFSI to realize AI benefits at scale, covering strategy, talent, infrastructure, and execution. Voice of Industry highlights that AI brought innovation back to the top of the CXO agenda, yet, challenges persist from lack of coherent strategies to gaps in talent, data, and infrastructure. And leaders emphasize the need to scale beyond pilots and adopt UPI-style open innovation to unlock AI’s full potential in finance.
The fourth chapter, Global Fintech Trends, provides an update on global and Indian fintech funding, revenues, and segment-wise developments. It underscores that APAC and NAMR will be the future centers of fintech gravity, while India continues to play a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of global financial services.