AI is advancing at an incredible pace. The rise of Generative AI (GenAI) has shown how fast AI can reshape industries, and now, Agentic AI is making an impact. In fact, Agentic AI is listed in Gartner’s Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2025, highlighting its growing importance.

But why, despite all these advancements, does fraud still persist and continue to become more severe? New AI technologies keep emerging, yet fraud and scams haven’t slowed down. Fraudsters are evolving just as fast, working around the clock to exploit vulnerabilities. Even businesses that have already adopted AI solutions are still struggling against increasingly sophisticated fraud tactics. This proves that there are still gaps in existing AI-driven fraud prevention.

While RegTech AI helps with compliance and GenAI enhances data analysis, they alone are not enough to outpace fraudsters especially for large enterprise. This is where Agentic AI comes in. It adds a new layer of adaptability and proactive fraud defense. But how does it work with existing AI solutions, and why is it a must-have for financial institutions?

Are You Choosing the Right AI for Fraud Prevention

Many people might get confused by all these AI terms—RegTech, GenAI, and now, Agentic AI. What exactly are they, and which one is right for your enterprise?

• RegTech focuses on compliance and regulatory reporting, automating fraud detection and risk management processes. However, it follows predefined rules and lacks adaptability to emerging threats.
• GenAI enhances data analysis, generates reports, and assists in customer interactions. While powerful, it does not take proactive actions against fraud.
• Agentic AI is the most advanced layer, continuously learning, adapting, and making real-time decisions to prevent fraud before it happens.

Unlike RegTech AI and GenAI, which primarily focus on analysis and compliance, Agentic AI acts as a central brain that orchestrates, plans, and executes tasks autonomously at scale to stop fraud in real time. It continuously adapts to new fraud tactics, learning from patterns and evolving threats to take immediate action against fraudulent activities. This makes it particularly valuable for financial institutions that need a proactive fraud prevention system capable of responding dynamically to emerging threats. However, for Agentic AI to be fully effective, it requires seamless integration with existing AI-driven systems to ensure a comprehensive approach to fraud prevention.

For financial institutions seeking a holistic fraud prevention strategy, a combination of these AI models is crucial. However, Agentic AI can serve as the core, coordinating actions across all AI layers.

Agentic AI: The Core of Next-Gen Fraud Prevention

Agentic AI functions like a highly intelligent fraud prevention command centre, processing vast amounts of data, identifying hidden threats, and executing immediate countermeasures.

• Reasoning: Instead of just flagging anomalies, Agentic AI understands the intent behind suspicious activities, making context-aware decisions to distinguish between legitimate and fraudulent behaviours.
• External Memory: Agentic AI remembers past fraud patterns and continuously learns, improving its accuracy in detecting new fraud techniques that may bypass traditional security measures.
• Execution: Unlike GenAI, which generates insights, Agentic AI takes action, automatically blocking fraudulent transactions, requesting additional verifications, or escalating high-risk cases.
• Planning: Fraud prevention isn’t just about reacting; it’s about predicting. Agentic AI foresees fraud patterns, proactively adjusting fraud risk assessments in real time.

Source from: AI Agents: A New Architecture for Enterprise Automation

Agentic AI might be smart, but it doesn’t work entirely on its own. It takes care of 80-90% of routine tasks autonomously, while the remaining 10-20% still need human oversight. This human-in-the-loop isn’t just about monitoring; it’s a key part of continuous learning. Every human decision fine-tunes Agentic AI, making it more effective and more adaptable over time.

4 Ways Agentic AI Outsmarts Financial Fraudsters

1. Real-Time Fraud Detection and Prevention

Fraud moves fast—financial institutions must move even faster. Traditional fraud detection relies on predefined rules and historical data, which means it often reacts to fraud rather than preventing it. Agentic AI changes the game by acting in real-time, continuously monitoring transactions, analysing vast amounts of financial data, and instantly identifying suspicious activity before it leads to losses.

This proactive approach is critical in today’s digital landscape. In 2023 alone, consumers lost over $10 billion to fraud, with investment scams accounting for $4.6 billion of that total based on FTC Report. Agentic AI’s ability to autonomously detect and block fraudulent transactions in real-time ensures that banks and financial institutions can intelligently stop fraud before it happens, protecting customers and preventing massive financial losses.

2. Continuous Learning on User Behaviour with Behavioural analysis powered by Agentic AI

Instead of relying on static credentials or past fraud markers, Agentic AI focuses on behavioural targeting, analysing how users interact with financial platforms in real-time. Every user has a unique digital footprint that includes mouse movements, typing speed, navigation patterns, device preferences, and transaction habits. Agentic AI continuously learns from these behavioural patterns, detecting even the subtlest anomalies that indicate fraudulent activity.

For example, a fraudster using stolen account credentials may enter details with different keystroke dynamics, navigate a banking portal at an unnatural speed, or attempt transactions in an unfamiliar pattern. Even if the credentials and device information seem legitimate, Agentic AI can flag suspicious activity based on behavioural inconsistencies.

This method is crucial, as fraudsters increasingly rely on automated bots and AI-driven scams to mimic real user behaviour. By continuously adapting to new fraud tactics, Agentic AI’s behavioural analysis prevents fraud before it happens, reducing false positives while improving security for genuine users.

3. Dynamic Risk Assessment and Adaptive Fraud Scoring

Fraud is constantly evolving, and risk assessments based on static rules are no longer effective. Financial institutions need a fraud prevention system that adapts in real-time to new fraud tactics.

Agentic AI introduces adaptive fraud scoring, which continuously updates risk levels based on real-time data, user behaviour, and emerging fraud patterns. Unlike traditional systems that use fixed thresholds for detecting fraud, Agentic AI learns from every interaction, making it harder for fraudsters to exploit outdated security measures.

This dynamic approach is critical, as over 61% of companies saw an increase in fraud attempts on consumer accounts in 2023. By continuously adjusting fraud risk levels, Agentic AI helps financial institutions stay one step ahead of criminals, preventing losses before they happen.

4. Automated Fraud Investigations and Case Prioritisation

Fraud investigations are often time-consuming, requiring teams to manually analyse transaction histories, gather evidence, and prioritise cases. This delayed response time gives fraudsters an advantage, allowing them to move stolen funds before they are flagged.

Agentic AI automates and accelerates the fraud investigation process by analysing massive datasets within seconds and ranking cases based on severity and risk level. This allows financial institutions to focus on the most urgent fraud cases first, significantly reducing investigation times from days to minutes, preventing further losses and bringing fraudsters to justice faster.

Financial Institutions’ Future Fraud Prevention: Smarter AI, Stronger Defense

The integration of Agentic AI into fraud prevention strategies offers financial institutions a robust defense against the evolving landscape of financial crime. By leveraging autonomous decision-making and real-time analysis, Agentic AI not only enhances the efficiency of fraud detection but also significantly reduces the window of opportunity for fraudsters, thereby safeguarding both institutional assets and customer trust.

For more on Agentic AI and its capabilities, check out our blog “What Makes Agentic AI ‘Agentic’?”.