Financial Services on AWS: Modernization, Search and Agentic Workflows for the AI-Ready Firm

Banking, wealth and investment firms are under pressure from every direction: aging core systems, rising client expectations, tighter regulatory scrutiny, fragmented data and the growing need to turn AI from experimentation into measurable value. The challenge is not simply moving to the cloud. It is modernizing the workflows that matter most—so firms can improve performance, strengthen trust and reduce operational complexity at the same time.

Publicis Sapient helps financial services organizations do exactly that with AWS. Combining deep industry experience, end-to-end transformation capabilities and enterprise AI platforms built for real-world adoption, we help firms modernize legacy estates, scale contextual search, enable advisors and operations teams, and deploy compliant AI in production.

Modernization for the workflows that drive growth

For financial institutions, modernization is not an infrastructure exercise in isolation. It is the foundation for better business performance. When firms modernize legacy applications and workloads on AWS, they can improve resilience, accelerate delivery, reduce technology drag and create the conditions for AI-ready operations.

Publicis Sapient works across strategy, product, experience, engineering and data and AI to help firms modernize with business outcomes in mind. Our AWS work spans cloud transformation strategy, architecture, migration, security and managed services, supported by a dedicated AWS business unit and a broad base of AWS-trained professionals and certifications. As an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner with multiple AWS competencies and specializations—including Financial Services Consulting, Migration and Modernization Consulting, Generative AI Services and agentic AI specialization—we bring the technical rigor and delivery confidence financial services leaders expect.

The result is a modernization approach designed around high-value use cases: improving advisor productivity, making research and knowledge easier to access, accelerating software delivery, scaling compliant AI and reducing the operational burden of complex legacy environments.

Build an AI-ready investment firm

AI readiness in financial services depends on more than model access. It requires the right cloud foundation, trusted data, governance, orchestration and workflow design. That is why Publicis Sapient and AWS focus on building enterprise-ready capabilities that move firms from insight to impact.

For investment firms, this means creating an operating environment where AI can support decision-making, improve employee effectiveness and integrate into existing processes without compromising security or control. Publicis Sapient’s approach combines AWS cloud and AI services with delivery expertise and platform accelerators to help firms move beyond pilots toward secure, production-ready adoption.

Contextual search that helps advisors move faster

One of the clearest examples of high-value AI in financial services is contextual search. Advisors, relationship managers and service teams often spend too much time navigating disconnected systems, fragmented content and multiple data sources just to answer a client question or prepare for a meeting. Modern search can change that.

Publicis Sapient worked with a leading wealth management firm to build a contextual search experience inside the firm’s existing platform. The solution ingested real-time financial data from multiple sources to improve how advisors found and used information. After starting on premises, the platform was migrated to AWS so the firm could scale it more effectively and meet security requirements. The results were significant: search response times dropped by 80 percent, the platform scaled to support more than 20,000 advisors and more than 90 percent of advisors rated contextual search as their favorite feature.

This is the kind of transformation financial services leaders are looking for—practical AI that improves a core workflow, enhances the employee experience and creates better client outcomes.

Enterprise AI with governance, context and control

In regulated industries, AI value depends on trust. Firms need confidence that new capabilities are explainable, governable and built to operate within enterprise guardrails. Publicis Sapient’s Bodhi platform is designed for exactly this challenge.

Built on AWS, Bodhi helps organizations deploy and scale generative AI and agentic AI use cases with the orchestration, context and governance needed for real business workflows. It supports capabilities across search, analytics, forecasting, personalization, workflow automation, compliance and real-time insights. Bodhi uses AWS services such as Amazon Bedrock and Amazon SageMaker to provide model flexibility along with enterprise-grade safeguards, data protections and responsible AI principles.

For financial services firms, that means AI can be embedded where it has the greatest impact: knowledge operations, service workflows, research enablement, internal search, productivity tools and other processes that demand both speed and control.

From pilots to agentic workflows

Many firms have already tested generative AI. Fewer have turned it into production-grade systems that can reason, plan, coordinate tasks and work across enterprise environments. That is where agentic AI becomes relevant.

Publicis Sapient has been recognized by AWS for its ability to deliver enterprise-ready autonomous AI systems at scale. Our agentic AI capabilities are built to help organizations move beyond isolated use cases and simple automation toward workflows that can collaborate across tools, execute tasks and continuously improve while remaining observable, secure and compliant.

In financial services, this opens the door to a new class of operating models: AI-enhanced service functions, more intelligent knowledge workflows, automated support for internal operations and coordinated digital experiences that augment human expertise rather than replace it.

Accelerating legacy transformation with Sapient Slingshot

Legacy complexity remains one of the biggest barriers to AI readiness in banking, wealth and investment management. Critical applications often sit on aging architectures that are expensive to maintain, difficult to change and poorly suited to modern delivery models.

Sapient Slingshot helps address this challenge by accelerating legacy modernization and software delivery. Built off Bodhi, it turns existing code into verified specifications and generates modern software with full traceability. Publicis Sapient also applies large language models, contextual knowledge and pre-built prompt libraries—with human intervention—to help teams understand code, document the target state, refactor legacy applications and automate testing.

This approach helps firms modernize faster while improving traceability, quality and maintainability. It also makes it easier to connect modernization investments directly to business outcomes such as agility, resilience and faster time to market.

Why financial services firms choose Publicis Sapient on AWS

Financial institutions need more than cloud migration support. They need a partner that understands how modernization, data, AI, governance and customer experience fit together in a regulated environment.

Publicis Sapient brings that combination of capabilities to AWS: industry-specific transformation, deep engineering expertise, enterprise AI platforms and a focus on measurable results. From cloud-native modernization and advisor enablement to contextual search and agentic workflows, we help firms build secure, scalable foundations for what comes next.

The opportunity is not to add AI on top of complexity. It is to simplify the complex, modernize the core and create high-value workflows that are ready for an AI-driven future.