Six weeks in, the EU AI Act tests banks beyond the chatbot

For banks, complying with the EU AI Act is about more than meeting a regulatory deadline or adding a disclosure to a chatbot. The bigger challenge is understanding where AI is already influencing customers and employees, including the less-visible tools embedded in fraud detection, collections, analytics, workforce management and other everyday systems.

In a new interview with The Datatech Times, Amanda Panks, Senior Manager of Strategy and Operations, EMEA at TTEC Digital, examines what has changed since key EU AI Act requirements took effect on Aug. 2 and where financial institutions still have work to do.

One of the most immediate challenges is visibility. AI capabilities can arrive quietly through software updates, third-party platforms and features added to technology already in use. That makes a traditional inventory based on which AI products an organization has purchased increasingly inadequate. Panks argues for a different question: Where is AI influencing an outcome?

That shift has implications far beyond compliance. Banks need to understand who is accountable for AI-supported decisions, whether employees have the authority to challenge those decisions, and whether customers get a consistent, useful explanation of AI’s role across channels.

And transparency itself is evolving. As Panks explains, simply telling customers they are interacting with AI is only the beginning. Customers also need to understand what the technology can do, where its limitations lie and how they can reach a person when they need one.

The next challenge may be even less visible: AI supporting the employees serving those customers. As AI-generated summaries, recommendations and next-best actions become part of frontline work, employee trust and oversight increasingly shape the customer experience.

Read the full interview for Panks’ perspective on AI visibility, human oversight and what meaningful transparency looks like in financial services.