Microsoft says legacy banks are hitting a breaking point as AI takes over the heavy lifting

Artificial intelligence is pushing financial systems toward a model where machines execute transactions at scale, raising new challenges around control, oversight and infrastructure, said Microsoft and Chainalysis executives.

Bill Borden, corporate vice president of worldwide financial services at Microsoft, said Tuesday that legacy systems will face increasing pressure as transaction demands grow more complex. The tipping point comes when “latency, scale, complexity are starting to impact your ability to compete,” forcing firms to rethink how their systems are built, he said at an event hosted by Alchemy in New York City.

While automation has long been part of finance, Borden said the focus is now shifting from capability to trust. “It’s not about, can technology automate … executing a hedging strategy — that can be done. The question is: can you trust it? Can you audit and control?” he said.

Microsoft, which offers its own AI assistant in many of its products, is…