Fintech nCino is embedding AI deeply into internal operations to drive efficiencies and improve products as the tech takes hold. 

The company has seen 60% efficiency and velocity gains across its end-to-end software development life cycle through AI, Chief Executive Sean Desmond told FinAi News. 

“We’re compressing the entire software development life cycle and getting product out the door faster,” Desmond said. “We’re deploying tools in days to weeks versus months to years.” 

The gains go well beyond code generation. 

“I don’t look at code generation in a silo, because I think that’s kind of a dangerous game,” Desmond said. “You can put a lot of code out there, but how much of that code actually makes it into shippable product?” 

The fintech uses Anthropic‘s Claude, he said.  

AI at nCino 

Every employee at nCino — from engineer to executive assistant — is licensed to use Claude. The large language model is also embedded in the company’s customer-facing AI tools, including digital banking assistant Banking Advisor and the Analyst Digital Partner, which powers automated credit memos, Desmond said. 

Read FinAi News’ LLM features here. 

“Like everybody else out there, we’re looking at the market, we’re looking at all of our options,” he said of nCino’s choice of the Anthropic platform. “Our technology team did a deep evaluation alongside the others, and they came out the front-runner.” 

The fintech’s largest bank customers want options, so nCino’s AI tools and platforms are built to allow customers to choose a different LLM provider, Desmond said. 

AI in banking 

An nCino report published today, “AI in Banking Benchmark: What Senior Executives Really Think About the Road Ahead,” found that 81% of financial institutions are prioritizing AI deployment over return on investment. The company surveyed 150 senior banking executives between March 28 and April 8. 

Desmond said that while banks are not indifferent to the bottom line, they are still new to the transformation AI is bringing. 

“Change is hard, and this is a transformative experience,” he said. “Right now, [banks] are just experimenting with the art of the possible and testing that in small increments, then measuring that adoption.” 

Most banks expect AI to entirely revamp operations and are deploying the tech first and analyzing ROI later, he said.  

“You don’t have an option to sit it out,” he said. 

To measure real impact of AI, employees must be trained on the tech, Desmond said. Banks are also trying to see how quickly they can get “employees to change the way they do their jobs, then they’ll be able to correlate those to outcomes.” 

AI ROI at large 

Banking giant JPMorgan sees its AI CapEx similarly. 

The $2.6 trillion institution doesn’t “spend a lot of time debating” the ROI, Lori Beer, chief information officer at JPMorgan, said during a May 5 webinar. “These are the foundational things you must do.”  

ROI will be discussed after AI has been embedded into nearly all the bank’s workflows, she said. 

Today’s nCino report states that 15% of banking executives say their institutions are still in the AI exploration or testing phases. 

Desmond attributes this to a mix of regulatory caution, security concerns and risk aversion. Some banks “just say, ‘I don’t want to be first. I’ll let the next guy go first, and then we’ll go after that.’” 

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