Financial institutions are throwing money at AI like it’s going out of style, but 80% of them have nothing to show for it.
That’s not a typo. Eight out of ten say their early AI investments haven’t improved their bottom line at all.
Glia (they’re the big player in banking AI platforms) and Alloy Labs (think of them as the cool kids’ club for financial innovation) just dropped something that might actually help: a free strategic planning kit designed specifically for the 2026-27 cycle. And unlike most “resources” that are just thinly veiled sales pitches, this one’s built like an actual workbook.
Why Banks Are Struggling With AI (And Why That’s a Planning Problem, Not a Tech Problem)
AI has become the number-one line item in technology budgets for banks and credit unions. Boards are approving massive spending on technology that evolves faster than quarterly earnings calls. But here’s the thing — most institutions are treating AI like just another software purchase instead of what it really is: a fundamental shift in how banking works.
“This is the first planning cycle where AI strategy and bank strategy are the same conversation,” says Jason Henrichs, CEO of Alloy Labs. He’s seen it firsthand: rooms full of bank technology leaders, all with board mandates and completed pilots, but when asked how many have a single AI agent actually in production? Crickets.
These aren’t institutions dragging their feet. They’re just stuck in the gap between running experiments and building real strategy.
The Perfect Storm Facing Financial Institutions Right Now
Let’s paint the full picture of what bank executives are dealing with as they plan for 2027:
- Protecting core deposits in a flat market
- Convincing the next generation not to move their inheritance somewhere “cooler”
- Dealing with talent shortages that make staffing feel like playing Jenga
- Navigating compliance requirements that seem to multiply overnight
- Fighting increasingly sophisticated fraud attempts
“The old strategic planning playbook just won’t cut it,” explains Dan Michaeli, CEO and co-founder of Glia. “Executives don’t need more AI hype. They need a practical blueprint to handle all these pressures at once.”
What’s Inside This Thing
The kit breaks down the silos between IT, operations, lending, and compliance teams — because let’s face it, AI that only works in one department isn’t going to move the needle. Here’s what it covers:
Rethinking Growth When Everything’s Changed
Traditional inbound support is fine, but it’s reactive. The kit shows how to flip the script with conversational, automated outbound voice and SMS outreach that actually fuels loan and deposit volumes. It’s about making your team more productive while protecting service levels even when employees leave (because they will).
Getting Value Across Your Entire Institution
Meaningful impact doesn’t come from random tech experiments scattered across departments. The kit lays out a Centralized Product Ownership Model to get the C-suite on the same page, a Three-Phase Roadmap that won’t blow up your workflows, and a practical framework for the Universal Banker model that everyone talks about but few actually implement well.
The Risk Part Nobody Wants to Talk About
Here’s where it gets real: doing nothing has operational costs. So does picking a generic AI vendor that doesn’t understand banking. The kit doesn’t sugarcoat this — it gives you the actual parameters for evaluating cybersecurity and compliance factors. Because hallucinations, data leaks, and vendor sprawl aren’t just buzzwords; they’re real liabilities that can sink institutions.
Why Glia and Alloy Labs Teamed Up on This
According to Henrichs, Glia was the natural partner because “they’ve done the production-scale work in banking that most AI vendors only put in slide decks.” That’s a diplomatic way of saying a lot of AI companies are great at PowerPoint presentations but haven’t actually deployed anything at scale in a real bank.
The kit addresses the core paradox: AI is eating up budgets, but institutions that treat it as just another line item will spend 2027 explaining to their boards why all that spending never reached the bottom line.
How to Get It
The 2026-27 Banking AI Strategic Annual Planning Kit is free to download right now at glia.com. If your institution wants to go deeper, Glia’s Financial Institution Advisory team also runs dedicated planning workshops — think of them as the hands-on version for teams that want expert guidance through the process.
Because at the end of the day, the institutions that figure out how to bridge the gap between AI experiments and actual strategy won’t just survive 2027. They’ll be the ones setting the pace while everyone else is still explaining their pilot programs.