# FINNOSUMMIT 2026: one in three sessions was about AI > Instead of summarising impressions, I counted the sessions: 22 of the 67 had AI in the title. That says a lot about where banking in the region stands. [Platform](https://www.shimliapp.com/en/blog/category/plataforma) ## FINNOSUMMIT 2026: one in three sessions was about AI Instead of summarising impressions, I counted the sessions: 22 of the 67 had AI in the title. That says a lot about where banking in the region stands. **Luis Aguilar** September 25, 2026 3 min read IN SHORT - Of the 67 sessions on the programme, 22 had artificial intelligence in the title. Six were specifically about agents and autonomy. - AI use among Mexican fintechs went from 60% in 2025 to 77% in 2026, with fraud incidents down 54.9%. - Among those already operating, the advice was not to automate more, but to decide better where to place friction on purpose. - The conference ran its own meeting agenda on an AI agent over WhatsApp, with no app to download. CONTENTS - What changed since last year - The line I took away - Why we go We were at the tenth edition of FINNOSUMMIT, at Expo Santa Fe in Mexico City. Two days, five stages and sessions running in parallel. You leave these events with a general impression, and impressions are arguable. So rather than telling you mine, I counted the sessions on the programme. Of the **67 sessions, 22 had artificial intelligence in the title.** One in three. Six were about agents and autonomy, and four about fraud and identity, which is the other side of the same question. ### What changed since last year AI stopped occupying the place of the promise and moved to that of the operation: who has it running, on which process and with what result. You can see it in the titles, which stopped asking whether it works and started asking how it is controlled. «From pilot to real value». The panel title sums up the shift: a year ago the question was whether AI worked; this year, why so many projects stay stuck in trial. FINNOSUMMIT 2026 · Expo Santa Fe, Mexico City The figure that frames the discussion comes from Finnovista’s radar: AI use among Mexican fintechs went from 60% to 77% in twelve months, with fraud incidents down 54.9% among those that applied it. ### The line I took away On the **Credit & Tech Convergence** panel, the person running retail banking at a chain with thousands of branches said the opposite of what usually gets said at these events. Credit & Tech Convergence · 24 September Rather than zero friction, we should have smarter friction. **Estephany Ley** Corporate Director of Retail Banking, Grupo Coppel It is a correction to the easy story about automation. The goal is not to remove steps but to distribute them: let the small transaction flow and stop the risky one. Anyone running a large portfolio knows those two things need different rules. ### Why we go Shimli runs agents in collections, credit, support and internal operations today. That does not put us ahead of anyone: it puts us in the room. The demo stage had sessions titled *Scale origination, servicing and collections with AI agents* and *AI agents on WhatsApp* . People solving the same problems we do, sometimes better, and that is why it is worth being there. AI changes every week and nobody keeps that pace alone. So we keep doing the same thing: sitting where the pace is set, listening to those further along, and building alliances with whoever solves a part we do not. It is the second side of the trust we [wrote about after Volcano](https://www.shimliapp.com/en/blog/trusting-an-ai-that-acts) : how the agent is built matters, and so does who builds it and who they learn from. Two questions I brought back for any operation - Where is it worth placing friction on purpose? If your process treats a balance enquiry and a large transfer at three in the morning the same way, friction is badly distributed. - If you automate and save, what share of that saving goes back to the customer as better service? Whoever keeps all of it usually pays for it in churn. [See the four processes already running in production →](https://www.shimliapp.com/en/casos) There was a second theme that took up more of my attention than expected, and it deserves its own entry: conversational banking stopped being a support channel and became the place where people run their transactions. ### Questions on this topic What was the netgrowing that FINNOSUMMIT 2026 introduced? The term the organisers used for their approach to networking: cultivating the network to generate growth, rather than collecting contacts. On the programme it took the shape of the Netgrowing Labs and a system that recommends who to meet based on each attendee's business goal. Useful to someone on your team? Share it with whoever decides on this process. [WhatsApp](https://wa.me/?text=FINNOSUMMIT%202026%3A%20one%20in%20three%20sessions%20was%20about%20AI%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.shimliapp.com%2Fen%2Fblog%2Ffinnosummit-2026-one-in-three) [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.shimliapp.com%2Fen%2Fblog%2Ffinnosummit-2026-one-in-three) [Email](mailto:?subject=FINNOSUMMIT%202026%3A%20one%20in%20three%20sessions%20was%20about%20AI&body=FINNOSUMMIT%202026%3A%20one%20in%20three%20sessions%20was%20about%20AI%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.shimliapp.com%2Fen%2Fblog%2Ffinnosummit-2026-one-in-three) Copy link ### Keep reading [See all →](https://www.shimliapp.com/en/blog) - Platform #### The next AI advantage is: trust What the Volcano Innovation Summit 2026 left behind: when capability gets cheap, the advantage becomes trust. And trust has two sides. September 16, 2026 - Platform #### 89% of AI pilots never reach production The reason is almost never the model. It is five conditions around it, and all five can be diagnosed before you sign anything. September 15, 2026 - Support #### Your next banking channel is already installed: WhatsApp AI agents are doing to apps what apps did to websites. What that means for an institution running real volume, and what separates a chatbot from an agent. September 25, 2026 ### Put an agent to work on this process. Create the account and start today. Or we take 30 minutes and define which metric you'll move. [Create account](https://shimli.app/user/auth/create-account) Book a demo