# nSight 2026: The Year AI in Banking Moved from Strategy to Delivery _Published: 2026-05-29T10:00:00.000-04:00_ Inside nSight 2026: how banks are moving AI from strategy to delivery, with the dual workforce and five agentic Digital Partners now in production. _Three days in Charlotte, one clear takeaway from nSight 2026: the banks pulling ahead have stopped talking about AI and started delivering._ AI is changing the work of banking faster than any technology has before. The institutions pulling ahead right now are using AI to give time back to their people, allowing them to focus on the work that actually promotes growth and relationship building. That's the future [nSight 2026](https://explore.ncino.com/nsight-2026) was built around. Customers, partners, and banking leaders from across the globe came to Charlotte, NC this May to dig into it together. Attendees networked with peers, met with our product teams, and got hands-on with the platform's newest capabilities and AI tools. Four themes defined nSight 2026. ### 1. From AI Banking to the AI-Native Bank In his opening keynote, nCino President and Chief Executive Officer Sean Desmond made the case plainly. **Transformation is no longer optional. **AI is changing banking, and institutions winning this moment are acting on it, not waiting. > “The question isn't whether or not you're going to _adapt_. The question is whether or not you're going to _lead, _regardless of your role_. _This is a movement.” — Sean Desmond, CEO at nCino Desmond grounded the room in three conditions for leading through this shift: **Trust, Time, and Outcomes** — **trust** as the foundation under every AI decision, **time** as what banks return to their **people**, and **outcomes **as the proof customers feel and banks can point to. The data backed it up. According to the latest [nCino Banking AI Benchmark](https://www.ncino.com/blog/ncino-ai-in-banking-benchmark-2026) released at the event, 84% of banking executives are deploying AI at the enterprise level, and 89% expect their institution to be a combination of AI agents and human teams within five years. The question has moved from "whether to move" to "how to do it well." ConnectOne Bank Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Frank Sorrentino joined Desmond on stage to show what going all in looks like. Sorrentino came to banking from construction, and his philosophy carries over: "Efficiency is speed." His view of AI follows directly: put agentic tools in the hands of frontline bankers so they can make better decisions. ### 2. The Dual Workforce and the Return of Time Sorrentino pointed to a clear goal for ConnectOne's frontline: a 50% efficiency gain across every frontline banker, equating to 1,000 hours per person per year, freed for the work that drives real outcomes. On the main stage, nCino Chief Product Officer Chris Gufford gave that future a name: the **dual workforce**. The concept describes a workforce in which humans and AI agents work together, with agents taking on the data-heavy work to give bankers back time for judgment, relationships, and growth. At nCino, five Digital Partners mapped to actual banking roles are in production today: Executive, Analyst, Service, Processor, and Client. > "We're not selling AI tools. We're delivering colleagues. They work 24/7, 365, which means your bankers start every single day at full velocity." — Chris Gufford, CPO at nCino Jill Boyle, Senior Vice President of Commercial Product and Treasury Solutions at WaFd Bank, joined the main stage to show what the dual workforce looks within an institution. WaFd deployed nCino’s Analyst Digital Partner to take on loan document review and covenant work that previously required manually keying information into spreadsheets. Now, her team has more time to act on insights, grow relationships, and find new opportunities in the communities they serve. ### 3. Global Proof in Customers Leading from Every Region Customer stories at nSight 2026 spanned the globe. In a panel led by nCino EMEA Managing Director Joaquín de Valenzuela, MUFG's Jane Woodley shared a striking result from a proof of concept they’re currently testing. Covenant extraction from a complex project finance loan used to take an analyst two to three hours. With the proof of concept now running, **extraction happens in two minutes,** plus a 15-minute analyst sense-check. Woodley's closing comment resonated. Banks have done things the same way for hundreds of years. Adopting the gold-standard platform — rather than bending it to existing process — is what lets a bank change with the regulation instead of rethinking the journey each time. On Day Two, nCino Chief Marketing Officer Nicole Caldwell welcomed Atlantic Union Bank's Executive Vice President David Ring and Chief Information Officer Steven Liles for a panel on the dual workforce in practice. Atlantic Union has grown from $7.8 billion to $37 billion in assets over the past eight years through four acquisitions and organic growth. Ring credited nCino with creating the workflow, consistent processes, and reporting that helped the bank execute on those acquisitions and scale. Atlantic Union Bank has applied AI to financial statement spreading, covenant monitoring, and review of rent rolls and insurance documents. Combined with nCino and other AI tools, Ring noted a 56% increase in books of business maintained over the past two years. ### 4. The People Are the Strategy Caldwell named what teams are really feeling about AI: > "I don't think people are scared of change. I think they're afraid of not being taken along for the ride and not being involved." — Nicole Caldwell, CMO at nCino nCino Chief Technology Officer Will Jung and AWS’ Head of Worldwide Banking Charith Mendis offered the discipline for getting the AI transformation right: **Problems, Context, **and **People,** in that order. Start with a clear problem. The institutions moving fastest are picking smaller, specific problems and solving them now instead of waiting for a massive transformation. Generic goals like "be more efficient" stall; problems tied to what makes your institution distinct are the ones AI can move. Then, layer in context. Generic AI produces generic automation. Institutions runs on knowledge the internet doesn't have, like specific policies, customers, and the way decisions flow through the business. Finally, people. The teams doing the work every day are the first to see where AI helps and where it gets in the way. Bringing frontline teams into the design — not just the rollout — is what makes change stick. nSight 2026 highlighted how financial institutions can and should move from the AI strategy phase to the AI execution phase. Attendees took home a framework for leading this moment (Trust, Time, and Outcomes), a working model to make it real (the Dual Workforce, with five Digital Partners in production today), and insights from a roomful of peer institutions already seeing results. nSight 2027 returns to Charlotte **May 11–13**, and we're looking forward to celebrating the outcomes our customers deliver in the year ahead. --- [View sitemap](https://www.ncino.com/api/markdown/sitemap)