Banking professionals recently named AI fluency the top skill their organizations need as AI takes hold and ranked pure software-development skill last.
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In American Banker’s
Critical thinking and judgment ranked second at 64% and data literacy third at 58%. Pure software-development skill drew 24%.
AI fluency tops the chart at the same time most respondents say their organizations don’t have much of it; 48% rated their organization’s current AI fluency as moderate, 33% rated it low or very low, and only 16% rated it high or very high.
About 39% named prompt engineering and AI tool proficiency as a most necessary skill. Another 38% named the ability to create and supervise models, bots or virtual agents.
Asked separately what roles their organization is adding, a senior executive in risk management at a bank with $100 billion to $150 billion in assets wrote: “Experts in prompting, agentic work flows.”
Retail and small-business bankers endorsed AI fluency most strongly: 82% named it a top skill, compared with 68% in wealth management and investment banking, and 69% in risk, legal, or compliance.
In wealth management and investment banking, critical thinking is considered more important than AI fluency, 74% to 68%. These were the only departments where AI fluency did not finish first, and they cared more about critical thinking than any other division.
Community banks under $10 billion in assets named change management and adaptability as a top skill 41% of the time. Credit unions selected it 43% of the time.
National banks with more than $100 billion in assets selected it 23% of the time.
In other words, community bank and credit union professionals were roughly twice as likely as national bank professionals to call change management a most-needed skill.
At institutions where AI spending grew 25% or more in the past year, 93% of respondents named AI fluency a top skill. At all other institutions, the share was 75% or lower.
AI fluency placed first in every cut of the survey but one. Software-development skills placed last in every cut.
