30 May 2025
What the Next Wave of GenAI Means for Investment Banking
Why senior banking leaders must shift from adoption to enablement and prepare their teams for a new era of performance.
Investment Banking Is Poised to Lead the GenAI Transformation
If any sector is equipped to lead the next wave of artificial intelligence adoption, it’s investment banking. According to the LexisNexis Future of Work 2025 report, GenAI in Financial Services – The Rise of the Creative Professional, a remarkable 81% of financial services professionals are already using genAI tools in their day-to-day work. The pace of adoption is fast, but what comes next matters even more.
The report reveals a powerful shift: from exploring genAI’s potential to embedding it deeply into how financial services professionals think, create, and deliver. Investment banking leaders now face a critical moment—one where the future depends less on whether genAI is used, and more on how responsibly and strategically it is scaled.
The Current Landscape: Adoption Has Outpaced Enablement
The financial services workforce has rapidly embraced genAI, but enablement still lags. While 84% of professionals are open to using genAI, only 14% of firms currently provide advanced AI training. This gap signals a clear leadership challenge—one that could limit both performance and risk management if not addressed.
Banking professionals are not just ready to use genAI; they’re ready to rethink how they work with it. The report found that 69% of professionals prefer creative thinking over strictly analytical tasks. Even in a field long defined by rigor and structure, there’s a clear appetite for tools that empower deeper thinking, faster synthesis, and more differentiated insight.
The Next Phase: What Leaders Should Expect from GenAI in Investment Banking
As genAI capabilities continue to evolve, the most successful investment banks will shift their focus from experimentation to transformation. According to the report, transformation will be shaped by four emerging trends—each carrying significant implications that senior leaders must prepare for now.
GenAI Fluency Will Become a Baseline Skill
Just as Excel and data visualization once became standard skills for analysts, genAI fluency will soon be expected. This goes beyond learning how to generate summaries or extract headlines. Future-ready teams will need to know how to construct prompts, validate outputs, refine tone, and ensure that AI-generated content can stand up to client and compliance scrutiny.
Firms that invest in structured, role-specific training will build stronger teams and reduce risk. They’ll also be better positioned to attract and retain the next generation of high-performers—those who expect genAI to be part of how they work.
Clients Will Demand Transparency and Accountability
As genAI-generated content begins to show up in pitchbooks, emails, and reports, clients will ask more questions such as: How was this insight produced? What data was it based on? How do I know it’s accurate?
The report makes clear that trust will be the currency of the next wave of genAI. 69% of financial professionals say transparency and explainability are essential, while 52% cite privacy and security as top concerns in genAI adoption. Leaders who implement tools, processes, and policies that make genAI use transparent and auditable will build a competitive advantage—not just operational efficiency.
General-Purpose Models Won’t Be Enough
While many firms have started with open, general-purpose LLMs, the future lies in specialized platforms that are purpose-built for financial workflows. Solutions like Nexis+ AI are designed to meet these needs—offering not only conversational access to credible data but also citation transparency, enterprise-grade compliance controls, and traceability down to the source.
These capabilities will become non-negotiable as regulators tighten expectations and clients demand proof of rigor. Banks that continue to rely on generic tools may soon find themselves falling behind.
Time Saved Must Be Reinvested in Value Creation
Time savings alone is not the endgame. According to the report, 34% of financial services professionals are saving 3–4 hours a day using genAI—but the firms that win will be those who use that time to go deeper, not faster.
Strategic use of genAI allows deal teams to spend less time on formatting and first drafts, and more time on analysis, scenario planning, and strategic recommendations. In the next phase of AI-powered banking, the goal isn’t to replace people, but to elevate their thinking and decision-making.
Unlocking the Potential Requires Cultural and Operational Alignment
To realise the full potential of genAI, investment banks must move beyond isolated experimentation. The report highlights a growing concern about fragmentation — inconsistent usage, unclear policies, and varying expectations across teams. This inconsistency can create reputational risk, especially in client-facing work.
Senior leaders must drive alignment by defining clear policies on when and how genAI is used, investing in training that reflects real-world scenarios, and implementing performance metrics that go beyond usage rates. As one respondent noted:
“If everyone handles it differently, how will we know what the standard is?”
Standardisation is not about restricting creativity — it’s about scaling it responsibly.
Transparency and Trust Start with the Right Tools
The most effective genAI adoption strategies aren’t about restraint — they’re about control, clarity, and confidence. For senior leaders, this means prioritising platforms that make transparency a core feature, not an afterthought. Tools like Nexis+ AI are built with traceable sourcing, clear audit trails, and human-in-the-loop capabilities that give users full visibility into how outputs are generated. This level of transparency doesn’t just build trust — it helps ensure decisions are grounded in credible, verifiable data.
For analysts and deal teams, that trust translates into freedom: the freedom to move faster, test ideas, and apply genAI creatively without second-guessing the integrity of their results. When people understand the limits and logic of the technology, they’re more likely to explore its full potential. And when leaders embed tools that prioritise transparency, they lay the groundwork for responsible scale — accelerating innovation while preserving the standards that matter most in high-stakes environments like investment banking.
What’s Possible When GenAI Is Deeply Embedded
GenAI is a foundational shift in how high-value work gets done — but only when it’s deeply and intentionally embedded into workflows.
As the technology matures, we’ll see a growing divide between firms that use genAI tactically, and those that use it strategically to sharpen insight, scale creativity, and transform delivery models. The banks that get it right will set a new standard in the industry: faster, smarter, more innovative — without compromising trust.
The next wave of genAI adoption in investment banking will belong to leaders who invest not just in platforms, but in people — and who understand that genAI’s greatest potential is human-powered.
Curious how top financial institutions are gearing up for what’s next in genAI?
Download the LexisNexis Future of Work 2025 – GenAI in Financial Services: The Rise of the Creative Professional report for deeper insights, benchmarks, and strategic guidance.