8 AI and data trends shaping financial services in 2026

A Databricks outlook piece arguing that the key challenge for financial services firms in 2026 is not AI adoption but execution — moving AI from pilots to production. It identifies fragmented legacy data infrastructure as the primary bottleneck and outlines eight trends shaping the industry, including agentic AI, real-time fraud detection, and Customer 360. The piece advocates for a unified lakehouse platform with embedded governance (Unity Catalog) as the foundation for scaling AI, claiming firms with strong governance frameworks are significantly more likely to push AI projects into production and can reduce operating costs by up to 20%.