LONDON, Sept. 19, 2024 -- Experian's latest research, conducted by Forrester Consulting, delves into the strategies of senior decision-makers in the financial services and telco sectors across EMEA and APAC. The survey of over 1200 C-suite and Director level leaders in Australia, Denmark, Germany, India, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Spain, and the Netherlands reveals how businesses are leveraging Generative AI (Gen AI), consolidating datasets to improve decisioning models, and prioritizing customer experience to navigate challenging economic conditions and technological disruption.

The race to harness GenAI is well underway

Business leaders identified technological disruption as the third largest external factor impacting their business in the coming two years, putting emphasis on the race toward AI supremacy to improve business efficiencies and reduce costs. Sixty-eight percent of participants believe that competitive advantage in their industry will be dependent on who can make the best use of AI, and nearly three-quarters (73%) of the technology leaders are exploring GenAI use cases with a view to implement them within the next year.

Technological disruption is a catalyst for improving customer experience

Survey respondents highlighted a centralised cloud-based platform as a notable factor to improve risk strategy. Nearly half (47%) foresee additional credit stress and tightened lending criteria. Many risk leaders (42%) also indicated that the top risk priority is to improve the ability to identify financially vulnerable customers. Integrating data sources, leveraging AI and streamlining data-to-insight-to-action processes to enable lenders to achieve a holistic borrower view, improve customer relations and foster lending practices.

Combining datasets into a single cloud-based platform is key to enhancing analytical capability

Data and analytics leaders are prioritising a unified platform for siloed datasets to accelerate AI/ML model development and deployment. More than half (55%) of respondents believe current development times are too long, with 48% stating that they are updating their models more frequently due to shifting consumer behaviour.

"This year's research highlights the growing importance of AI and data analytics for businesses seeking a competitive edge," says Malin Holmberg, CEO, EMEA & APAC, Experian. "While we are still facing broader macroeconomic challenges, the majority of leaders remain optimistic about future growth and increased technology investment."

Download the full report here.

About Experian

Experian is a global data and technology company, powering opportunities for people and businesses around the world. Learn more at experianplc.com.

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Contact: Yolanda Zondo, Yolanda.zondo@experian.com