Anika Sidhika
5 min read
In This Article:
In an industry long dominated by cautious innovation and legacy constraints, Appian is helping financial services companies achieve something rare: agility without compromise. With a platform built on process orchestration, data unification, and now agentic AI, the company is helping traditional firms act more like startups, without abandoning their enterprise rigor.
“We’ve worked with financial services companies since the company was founded 25 years ago. They are our biggest vertical,” said Sanat Joshi, EVP - product and solutions at Appian. “They’ve invested a lot in IT transformation, and we see this as a massive opportunity for them to get a big return on that investment.”
Now, Appian’s latest leap, Agentic AI, is poised to reshape how banks deploy automation and AI. Through Agent Studio, companies can create and deploy intelligent agents in minutes, tightly integrated into enterprise-grade processes.
At this year’s Appian World, Agent Studio was arguably the most talked-about release. It enables customers to build AI agents that do more than just automate, they orchestrate end-to-end processes.
“Literally in a matter of minutes, you can create a production-quality agent and deploy it,” Joshi said. “Early customers are seeing phenomenal results.”
But Appian’s approach differs sharply from the industry norm. Where many vendors treat AI agents as stand-alone bots or chat tools, Appian embeds them within business workflows. The company believes this integration, AI plus process, is the unlock for exponential value.
“Business process plus agents are so much more exponentially powerful,” he added. “That’s the core difference.”
To make that work, Appian provides the structure. The process engine acts as a framework for agents, offering full logging, auditability, and goal setting. The platform’s data fabric supplies agents with the precise, role-secured information they need, “data is the oxygen for agents,” Joshi noted.
This foundation also enables faster development. By layering large language models (LLMs) onto existing infrastructure, teams can create and deploy intelligent systems in record time. And for financial services firms, that speed can mean real revenue.
One case in point: A customer recently used Appian to launch a new crypto wallet product that integrates both fiat and digital assets. From concept to launch, it took just eight weeks and brought in $30m in customer deposits almost immediately.
“They were able to do this in eight weeks and get the product out,” he said. “That’s just one example of how fast these guys can go.”
