Publicis Sapient doesn’t sell tools; it delivers human-led, AI-enhanced solutions that blend proprietary platforms with deep industry expertise across global banking. The organisation is shaping the future of financial services by delivering complex digital transformations across continents – from the UK and Southeast Asia to the Middle East and the United States – anchored by a belief that true innovation lies at the intersection of business insight and technological depth.
Publicis Sapient utilises a SPEED philosophy – Strategy, Product, Engineering, Experience and Data. “For us, SPEED isn’t just a framework. It’s the way we align our capabilities to accelerate transformation,” explains Financial Services Director Arunkumar Gopalakrishnan. “My focus is the ‘P’ in that process – Agile Program Management and Product Management; helping clients move from vision to value at pace.”
Transformation at SPEED
During his time with Publicis Sapient, Arunkumar has seen the power of transformation at SPEED on a variety of high-stakes projects: helping a major UK bank launch a digital-only entity on the cloud; partnering with a leading Thai bank to revitalise its mobile-banking experience for a fast-growing, tech-savvy customer base; supporting a sovereign-funded startup bank exploring blockchain for trade finance in collaboration with Microsoft; building a holistic wealth-management platform for a large US custodian bank; and helping another lead the way in AI adoption. These are the type of innovation journeys where Publicis Sapient excels at moving from groundwork to exponential scale.
At the Intersection of Business and Technology
Publicis Sapient excels by fusing two disciplines often treated as separate. “We are at the intersection of business and technology,” explains Arunkumar. “You need deep business acumen to understand client challenges. However, you must have enough technical depth to engage meaningfully with engineering teams. That balance is what enables real problem-solving.”
From fraud prevention to blockchain and digital banking the industry is changing fast,” he notes. “Working with Generative AI today feels like standing on a new frontier. It keeps us on our toes, but it’s also what drives us – to stay relevant, deliver outcomes and connect both worlds of business and technology.”
Meeting the Challenge: Balancing Innovation and Risk
The biggest challenges facing financial services clients are not purely technological. They are structural and cultural. “Banks operate in complex regulatory environments,” notes Arunkumar. “There’s always a tension between innovation and risk management. On one hand, you want the next shiny thing; no one wants to be left behind in the technology race. On the other, you can’t bring something to life without going through the proper regulatory and risk-management controls.”
That balance defines the work Publicis Sapient does. “We are a people + product business,” he says. “Our strength lies in talented people, strong domain understanding, platforms, tools and a culture that says to clients: We have your back; we get it done.”
Many of the firm’s engagements, he explains, involve deep collaboration, experimentation and iteration. “Some of the use cases we take on aren’t easy. We work with partners, we research, we prototype, we unlearn and relearn. Progress in this space is continuous, not linear.”
A Digital Transformation Success Story
Publicis Sapient partnered with a large US Bank to lead digital transformation efforts focused on GenAI implementation and scaling. It worked in collaboration with Google and the Bank to design, build, and adopt GenAI to spur innovation, enhance risk management and improve productivity.
The high-level solution is composed of modular components including a secure GenAI Gateway for LLM access control, RAG framework for contextual retrieval, and Vertex AI integration leveraging Gemini models for high-quality natural language responses.
Delivering the Solution
The solution delivered integrated, repeatable accelerators designed to solve the central business challenges of speed, risk, and control from the ground up.
Publicis Sapient’s Financial Services Director Arunkumar Gopalakrishnan explains how the platform was built upon some core pillars:
Unified LLM Access & Model Context Protocol: “We streamlined the model consumption layer with a foundational gateway, built on a resilient Model Context Protocol (MCP). The MCP acts as an essential abstraction layer, ensuring all data streams, model inputs, and application requests are managed consistently, securely, and in compliance with governance rules.”
Integrated Governance & Security: “We implemented a ‘shift-left’ security approach, embedding continuous guardrails directly into the GenAI pipelines. This pre-processing step, coupled with adversarial testing, proactively minimizes human error, reduces operational risk, and ensures a continuous, audit trail.”
Proprietary Knowledge Grounding (RAG): “The platform enables the Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pattern. This involves securely indexing the bank’s vast internal repository of operational knowledge and compliance guides – by using this verified knowledge to ‘ground’ LLM responses, the platform ensures every AI output is based on the bank’s accurate, proprietary data. This successfully mitigates factual errors, minimizes hallucination risk, and protects brand integrity.”
Agent Orchestration (Agentic AI): “Moving beyond simple chat, the platform includes capabilities for managing Agentic AI workflows which greatly improves efficiency. These agents are goal-directed systems that execute multi-step business processes (e.g., investigating a service ticket, performing patching operations etc. with human-in-loop for oversight). This is the crucial layer for end-to-end automation of complex, cross-functional tasks.”
Unified Observability: “The final pillar establishes a system for tracking crucial metricstied to defined business outcomes. This enterprise-level observability framework captures data like response latency, quality, consumption rates etc. This data allows leadership to continuously monitor output quality and reviewing against the standards of accuracy and trustworthiness.”
Realising the Benefits
The positive impact of the work Publicis Sapient is doing includes:
Scalable Framework: Designed as a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) model to support future GenAI use cases across the enterprise; agent-driven extensibility enables enhancements with rapid time-to-market deployments.
Accelerated Onboarding: Automates the provisioning process by surfacing relevant documentation, policies, and procedures instantly.
Knowledge Reuse: Leverages existing enterprise knowledge bases to reduce redundancy and improve consistency.
Building with Purpose: From Vision to Scale
At the heart of Publicis Sapient’s transformation philosophy is its Digital Business Transformation Framework. Teams use a playbook to take clients from problem definition to scaled delivery. “It starts with Ignite – understanding the problem and bringing in strategic expertise,” explains Arunkumar. “Then comes Hunt & Shape – identifying and defining value, mapping MVPs and roadmaps. And finally Build & Scale – turning ideas into outcomes by building the right solutions.”
Scaling, he insists, is not only about size but certainty. “You don’t scale right away. You start small – proofs of concept, limited users, experiments and learn fast. Once you know what works, you can accelerate.”
He points to a current AI engagement as an example. “We started with one application hosted on the platform last year. Now we have twenty-plus, and many more coming. Building the foundation took months, but once we understood the landscape, everything else became a fast follower. You develop a playbook, you know the risks, and then it’s about momentum.”
Generative AI: A Catalyst for Reinvention
Few technologies have captured the imagination of financial services like Generative AI. Arunkumar sees its impact as both profound and pragmatic. “While business leaders talk about productivity gains, CIOs are using GenAI to drive measurable productivity and cost efficiency by modernising high-friction IT Service Management processes,” he notes.
Publicis Sapient identifies three areas where the shift is most visible:
- Enhanced self-service: Intelligent Virtual Assistants act as the first line of defence. They automate a big chunk of initial inquiries, freeing human agents and improving response times.
- IT-agent augmentation: GenAI synthesises ticket histories, diagnoses root causes and drafts expert-level resolutions. It drastically shortens the mean time to Resolution for critical incidents.
- Developer velocity: Secure, context-aware coding assistants are improving efficiency, allowing engineers to focus on high-value work.
Each example reflects a practical application of AI – not hype but measurable productivity and cost efficiency.
The Rise of Agentic AI
Publicis Sapient’s next frontier is Agentic AI, where intelligent agents move beyond analysis to orchestration and action. Teams have been testing these systems within IT service environments for major banks. “We started with a simple knowledge-search application,” he recalls. “It consolidated information across multiple systems to provide accurate, high-performance answers.”
From there, Publicis Sapient expanded into process automation. “Imagine an IT engineer under pressure to fix issues fast,” he says. “The knowledge-search tool becomes a force multiplier, identifying root causes instantly. Next, you automate the actions – patching servers, routing tickets, escalating tasks – with a human in the loop for control.” The goal is productivity gains with safety.
Challenges remain – particularly model drift and AI hallucination – but these can be mitigated with rigorous evaluation frameworks. “AI is probabilistic, not deterministic,” says Arunkumar. “You can’t expect one-plus-one to always equal two. That’s why continuous grounding, validation and human oversight are key.”
Innovation in Action: Real-World Use Cases
For Arunkumar, the most exciting part of AI transformation lies in the unexpected. “Some of the best use cases aren’t flashy but support everyday processes that, when optimised, deliver outsized value.”
He describes one example from a banking client: improving the reliability of customer statements. “A bank may send hundreds of thousands of daily communications – statements, notifications, alerts. Sometimes statements fail to send, and by the time customers notice, the issue snowballs into reputational risk.”
AI, he notes, can detect these failures proactively. “If a statement isn’t generated by 7 a.m., the system flags it very soon and resolves it before customers even notice. Predictive AI identifies the anomaly; GenAI drafts the corrective communication for review. It’s small, but it saves time, cost and reputation.”
Such “mundane” use cases, he argues, are where the real transformation happens. “Everyone talks about the big, shiny things. But in complex, regulated environments, it’s the subtle automations that drive consistent outcomes.”
Platforms for the Future
Publicis Sapient’s investment in AI platforms underscores its commitment to innovation. Arunkumar highlights three in particular:
- Bodhi, the foundational system for building intelligent agents
- Slingshot, designed to accelerate software-development lifecycles
- Sustain AI, focused on IT service management and operational resilience
“These are our three-pronged approach to transformation,” he explains. “Each builds on the other – Bodhi as the foundation, Slingshot for velocity, and Sustain AI for long-term stability. And there’s more in the pipeline…”
Culture, Collaboration and the Power of Small Wins
For all the technology involved, Arunkumar insists transformation ultimately depends on people. “In any transformation, you work with stakeholders who have competing priorities,” he says. “The key is to focus on agreements first – find small wins and move forward. Progress builds trust.”
Publicis Sapient is a people + product business where Arunkumar encourages his teams to balance ambition with empathy. “If a meeting is contentious, end with one thing agreed. Take the rest next time. Transformation isn’t about forcing alignment; it’s about building it. We tell our clients, and our teams, ‘We have your back’. That trust is what makes complex programs succeed.”
Looking Ahead: Building Expertise and Depth
The focus for 2026, and beyond, is on cultivating deep, dual-disciplinary expertise. “Our teams sit between business and technology,” he explains. “You must be good at both. No one can master all financial services, it’s too vast, but you can specialise. Pick a niche within key areas – asset management, wealth, retail banking, corporate banking, payments, financial crime – and become excellent at it.”
At the same time, he urges his teams to stay curious about technology. “Even if you’re not implementing solutions yourself, you need to understand them and speak the same language as engineers and architects. That’s how collaboration works.”
Continuous learning, he believes, is non-negotiable. “There’s so much information out there – training, communities, conversations. We just need to channel it, understand the basics and keep moving forward.”
Transformation: A Continuous Journey
At Publicis Sapient transformation is never static. “We don’t fix something once and move on,” he says. “We think, test, learn, and build again. You must define the real problem before you solve it, validate your progress and inspire others to see the vision.”
Purpose and persistence turn complexity into clarity for Publicis Sapient’s clients. “The journey is continuous,” says Arunkumar with characteristic calm. “But that’s what makes it exciting. Every challenge is an opportunity to learn, collaborate and move forward – one small win at a time.”
Find out more at publicissapient.com
- Artificial Intelligence in FinTech