Private banks are competing in a race: want to board the AI ark, first calculate the cost.

The attitude of the industry towards the technological wave has shifted from a choice of "whether to embrace" to a mandatory question of "how to embrace". The value of AI ultimately needs to be reflected in business performance. In the first half of 2025, a person from a privately-owned bank that successfully turned around from last year's increase in revenue but not in profit told reporters that embedding AI technology into core business scenarios and truly achieving efficiency improvement is the key for privately-owned banks to break away from traditional business models and achieve efficient customer acquisition. However, there are still obstacles to the implementation of AI technology, and security, cost, and benefits are the main concerns of banks. "In recent years, banks have generally faced the dilemma of tight IT budgets, and the cost of building a complete intelligent system is often in the millions." A person in charge of the technology department of a small and medium-sized bank told reporters that although free AI models can reduce the initial deployment costs for banks, the subsequent investment in computing resources, continuous model training, team talent development, and other factors are also significant costs for some privately-owned banks.