Banking Websites Must Be Built for AI Search
58% of customers who use gen AI have already used it to research banking products, yet many banking product pages are still written like old branch brochures.
A bank or credit union product page that states who the account is for, what it costs and how to avoid the fee gives a customer, or an AI tool helping her, something to compare. Deloitte found that 58% of customers who use gen AI have already used it to research banking products.
Customers still trust their bank’s own website more than any other source when they research a product, with 79% saying so in Deloitte’s survey of almost 2,600 U.S. banking customers. At the same time, 58% of customers who use gen AI have used it to research banking products. A product page now serves a person and an AI tool at once, and many pages were written like the brochures that used to sit in every branch.
In this Banking Insights episode, Jim Marous follows a freelancer paid in lumps through two versions of the same checking account page. The generic page says flexible banking and low fees, so she cannot tell what the account costs or how to avoid the fee. The more useful page states the fee, how to waive it without a payroll direct deposit and how to reach a person, so she can compare the terms with her income.
The episode separates transparency, fit and proof, and explains why clearer copy can reveal an advantage but cannot create one. It lays out four checks for three product pages, looks at what a site that asks a few questions up front could do next, and ends with an exercise for leadership: each executive writes down who each product is for and why it fits, then the team compares the answers.
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About: Banking Transformed is hosted by Jim Marous, top five banking industry influencer and Co-Publisher of The Financial Brand. Banking Insights episodes deliver the most important strategic ideas in under ten minutes, for the executive who wants the takeaway without the deep dive. Subscribe to the Digital Banking Report at digitalbankingreport.com.
