Financial institutions are moving away from the app-as-menu model. Three moves across Asia and Latin America show banks and payment providers replacing tap-driven interfaces with AI agents that execute tasks.
DBS upgraded its AI assistants with generative and agentic capabilities, extending the update to more than 10 million customers across Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. The assistants now handle real banking tasks conversationally, moving past simple Q&A into execution.
Itaú, Brazil's largest private bank, launched two overlapping AI products in the same week: a conversational AI assistant and a full generative assistant called ia.i. Both let customers check balances, make Pix transfers, and analyze spending through natural language — typed, spoken, or submitted as an image.
Cielo, one of Latin America's largest payment processors, integrated an AI shopping assistant directly into its payment gateway. The entire e-commerce journey — from product search to final checkout — completes inside a single chat interface, with no separate cart page or app switch.
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Banking agents now transfer money, analyze spending and complete purchases through natural-language instructions. DBS, Itaú and Cielo have introduced these functions across banking and payment services.