A recent Citi GPS report reveals a significant rise in venture capital funding for autonomous AI startups, as the game-changing agentic AI technology attracted record investments in 2024.
A recent report by Citi GPS (Global Perspectives & Solutions) – a research and thought leadership division of Citi – titled “Agentic AI – Finance & the ‘Do It For Me’ Economy” reveals the transformative potential of agentic artificial intelligence (AI) in the financial sector that’s going to see mass adoption in the nearest future.
In particular, the report highlights a surge in venture capital investments in AI startups, with 37% of funding directed towards these companies in 2024. This trend is expected to continue into 2025 and become even more pronounced. Notably, autonomous agents and digital co-workers experienced the most substantial growth in venture capital activity, surpassing even highly widespread generative AI applications in customer support operations.
Since major global tech companies like Microsoft, Oracle, and Amazon are quickly integrating agentic AI into their platforms, the report predicts smaller businesses and other industry giants will follow the lead in 2025. Repetitive tasks, traditionally outsourced to contractors or overseas, are expected to be handled by agentic AI instead. As a result, many individuals may shift from managing people to overseeing agents. Furthermore, the report based on the survey of over 30 founders and executives from AI startups, BigTechs, consultants, and policy institutes suggests that AI agents will soon move from being focused on specific tasks to combining their utilities to manage multiple tasks.
At the same time, tasks that haven’t traditionally been outsourced are less likely to be automated. Besides, in the near future, fully autonomous agents in finance are expected to remain limited. Nevertheless, the notion is already gaining popularity in some fintech segments like blockchain and crypto, for example. As revealed by another recent report, the market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies traded by AI agents surged by 322% in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Unlike generative AI, which responds to user prompts, agentic AI operates autonomously without ongoing human help and guidance. AI agents can make decisions and execute multi-step tasks based on initial settings without further human intervention. This evolution heralds a shift towards a ‘do it for me’ economy, where technology assumes greater control over decision-making processes.
In finance, agentic AI can enhance many operations’ efficiency, scalability, and personalisation. Potential applications include virtual financial assistants offering individual and highly personalised investment advice, autonomous fraud detection systems, and streamlined compliance processes such as Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks. Once AI agents are equipped with the authority to perform some financial operations, they can be an even greater game-changer for the fintech segment and future AI-commerce.
Thus, the concept of agentic contracts is currently gaining traction. Such contracts are programmable agreements that automate compliance, payments, and regulatory monitoring. Essentially, agentic contracts use AI to handle routine financial processes and automatically ensure that all terms are met, reducing the need for human oversight and increasing efficiency. They could potentially transform asset finance and contract management by handling complex financial agreements on pre-defined rules, making the processes more secure, efficient, and less prone to human error.
Nevertheless, the report is not all about optimistic expectations about AI potential. It also cautions about emerging threats associated with AI advancements. Those include AI-driven fraud, deepfake scams, and data misuse. Notably, deepfake scams have surged by over 2000% in the past three years, with banks and fintech companies being primary targets.
