In this keynote at TAB Global Excellence in Retail Finance Awards dinner held at The Bvlgari in Shanghai, I argued that AI will make much of what banks do indistinguishable. Products will look the same, capabilities will converge, and the advantage institutions once relied on will erode faster than expected.
What many do not realise is that this is not a new phenomenon.
Centuries ago, a ship carrying more than 60,000 pieces of Chinese ceramics was already operating at industrial scale across civilisations. By today’s standards, that was commoditisation. Yet value did not disappear. It shifted into the hands of those who could differentiate through design, materials, and their ability to respond to demand.
That same pattern is playing out again.
China’s economy today operates at a scale that would typically destroy value in most systems, from manufacturing to electric vehicles with hundreds of producers. Yet value continues to be created because participants differentiate and evolve within ecosystems rather than compete on product alone.
AI will now accelerate this shift across financial services. Capabilities will become widely accessible, and customers will increasingly decide what is relevant, changing the balance of power in the relationship.
The implication is clear. Value will not reside in the product. It will reside in how institutions position themselves within ecosystems, how they curate relevance, and how they differentiate when everything else looks the same.
