2025 Financial Services Roundtable Highlights: Refining Digital Strategy in the AI Era

TL;DR: At the 2025 Yext Financial Services Roundtable, industry leaders explored how financial marketers can thrive in an AI-first world. The big takeaways: discovery is evolving fast, visibility now hinges on structured and trusted data, authenticity remains essential, and compliance can actually fuel innovation. As attribution models shift and AI visibility becomes an important part of SEO, marketers who act early will set the standard for success.

---

An industry at an inflection point

At the Yext Financial Services Roundtable, held October 21–22 at Hotel Bardo in Savannah, marketing, compliance, and digital strategy leaders came together to tackle one question: How do financial services organizations adapt and win in an AI-first world?

Throughout the day, participants at this intimate event dove into the challenges of brand visibility, trust, compliance, and attribution.

Experts and thought leaders focused on many things, including:

• How client discovery has changed and what it means to marketers
• Ways financial institutions are using AI to connect with clients and streamline marketing
• How the dynamic regulatory environment impacts reviews and digital communications
• Trusted strategies for shifting your attribution model and optimizing marketing spend

Let’s take a look at some of the highlights.

From SEO to AI visibility

The day opened with Jenette Simisky, VP of Product at Yext, and Devin Stevens, Sr. Director of Solutions Consulting at Yext, framing the biggest change facing financial marketers today: Discovery is no longer linear – or predictable.

“The way clients search has changed more in the last 12 months than in the previous 10 years,” Simisky said, setting the tone for a discussion that underscored how AI is rewriting every rule of marketing performance.

Why? For starters, Simisky explained, “Discovery now happens everywhere – across Google, ChatGPT, Gemini, social media, and Reddit. And visibility isn’t about rankings. It’s about whether AI models trust your brand’s information enough to cite it in their answers.”

This shift is happening faster than most financial services organizations are ready for, and the team at Yext wanted to make sure attendees knew how to respond in a powerful way.

Stevens then broke down how those models actually “think,” showing how systems like ChatGPT analyze questions, match specific types of questions to sources, and build responses. As he put it, “Trust is the currency of the LLMs; citations are the receipts.” The brands that show up in AI answers are the ones with structured, accurate, and consistent data.

Marketers were challenged to re-think their strategy across three dimensions:

• How clients find you: Visibility now depends on structured data and presence across every trusted source, not just Google.
• How your brand is described: In AI search, you’re not writing the copy — the algorithm is, using what it knows about your brand.
• How you create content: Every asset must serve two audiences – humans and machines – balancing clarity, accuracy, and authenticity.

Then, Simisky introduced a formula to help financial services organizations thrive in this new era:

1. Publish accurate, structured data to drive AI visibility.
2. Scale human engagement to capture the demand AI creates. Lean into digital communication programs (social, group messaging, texting) to nurture 1:many, 1:few, and 1:1 relationships.
3. Measure and benchmark visibility everywhere – using platforms like Scout to track how your brand surfaces across both traditional and AI search.

In closing, Simisky reminded attendees that this change – while significant – isn’t a threat; it’s an opportunity. Every firm is facing the same disruption, and those that act early will define how trust, visibility, and marketing success are measured in the years ahead.

Ask Me Anything: From AI Hype to Attribution Overhaul

Moderated by Yext Director of Customer Success, Kim Dunbar – this lively panel brought together Arjun Daga, Digital Product Manager for Public Websites and Investor Engagement at Edward Jones; Tim Rickards, Sr. Director, Value Consulting at Yext; Erica Spelman, Sr. Content Strategy Manager at Yext; Adam Abernathy, Sr. Director of Yext Research; and Bill Simpson, Supervision Director, Value Consulting at Yext – to unpack how AI and compliance are reshaping the marketing playbook.

Rickards opened with a reminder that in the age of AI-generated content, “Authenticity is still the best path to engagement.” He highlighted that comments and social interactions are becoming rich data sources for brand sentiment and engagement.

Spelman emphasized the importance of structure and clarity in AI-era content creation: “Your content structure and clarity matter just as much as, or maybe even more than, your creativity.” She noted that marketers now write for both humans and machines and reiterated that maintaining authenticity remains critical for connection.

After explaining why federal deprioritization doesn’t mean financial services organizations should get lax about compliance, Simpson encouraged organizations to use it as a strategic advantage: “There is a way to think about compliance strategy as a companion and accelerant to your marketing strategy.” His point landed as a call to collaboration between marketing and legal teams.

Daga offered advice to organizations interested in testing AI but unsure of where to start. He explained, “Test the waters internally to incrementally build trust and you’ll get to explore more use cases.”

The discussion closed on a unifying theme: experiment boldly, measure ruthlessly, and bring compliance along for the ride.

Attribution Overhaul: Measuring ROI in the AI Era

As third-party cookies crumble and LLMs rewrite the customer journey, the attribution conversation is getting a full reset. This interactive Think Tank session explored how AI-driven discovery demands new measurement models that link visibility, engagement, and conversion.

Rickards noted that “Attribution is being deconstructed. We’ve had a process that works pretty well for 20 years, and now it’s changing.” The funnel, he joked, now looks more like “a trombone that’s been hit by a car” — unpredictable, nonlinear, and dynamic.

Participants learned what metrics can be used to analyze AI visibility as a new performance indicator (sentiment, share of voice, citations, linked sources, directional rank, and presence positioning) while being reminded that Google still owns the lion’s share of search activity.

The takeaway? While it’s not time to ditch traditional attribution just yet, it’s clear that AI is here to stay, so incorporating a strategy that merges SEO and AEO/GEO (answer engine optimization and generative engine optimization) is a powerful strategy pivot.

Financial Services & AI: Progress, Pragmatism, and Policy

Yext’s Stuart Greer, VP of Enterprise Sales at Yext, joined Erica Spelman and Bill Simpson to co-lead a conversation on balancing AI innovation with oversight.

The team kicked off by sharing an industry snapshot:

• Most firms are running small test and pilot programs, while only a few have robust AI tooling in production.
• Banks are using AI to identify cross-sell and acquisition triggers, insurers are exploring risk prediction and sentiment analysis, and wealth firms are scaling personalized advisor marketing.

However, as more organizations respond to marketing demands, the supervision workload grows. Teams are expected to monitor more channels, more content formats, and more data on accelerated timelines with the same-sized staff. As Simpson put it: “Faster doesn’t mean freer; it means we need smarter governance to keep up.” He offered ideas on the best ways to lean into AI as an optimization tool by having it tackle low-risk, tedious manual processes like drafting training materials and analyzing data.

Next, Spelman offered trusted tactics marketers can use to optimize content for AI visibility:

• Lean into lists and FAQs: AI likes things it can easily understand
• Be ‘fact forward’: Lead with a strong point of view and provide supporting evidence
• Cite sources: Point to your own data and other reputable data sources
• Turn the spotlight on your experts: Highlight author credentials and accomplishments
• Say less: Use clear language (no marketing jargon)
• Be quotable: Make sure each key point stands alone out of context

Presenters encouraged organizations to start testing ways to incorporate AI tools into their daily workflows. Before they opened the floor to audience questions, Simpson shared a risk assessment framework that helps pinpoint AI opportunities with a healthy risk-to-benefit ratio.

Beyond Google: Client discovery in an AI-first world

In this interactive workshop, Adam Abernathy brought his research into the spotlight, which explores how discovery itself is being redefined. He showed how memory-enabled AI models are introducing a new form of digital loyalty – where being cited isn’t just visibility, it’s trust earned over time.

Midway through the session, he quipped, “AI is really good at delivering hyperpersonal content. Marketers have always wanted personalized marketing. And you’ve got it now! You just don’t control it.” The room responded with half laughs, shoulder shrugs, and head nods.

His advice for marketers?

• Treat citations as the new currency of credibility (and showing up in personalized results as a new form of brand loyalty).
• Focus on structured, source-backed content that AI can easily ingest and use to “understand” your brand.
• Don’t forget about Google, but start to think beyond Google. Clients start their search journeys in LLMs, voice assistants, and chat interfaces -- not just search bars -- and all of the above are powered by AI.

To close the session, Abernathy reiterated that what’s old has become new again and mastering optimization basics – using consistent naming conventions, short, clear paragraphs free of jargon, cited data linked to authoritative experts, easily provable facts, and quotes that can be lifted out of context – is the path to success.

Embracing AI-era opportunities

In our closing remarks, Erica Spelman and Devin Stevens encouraged attendees to remember this: AI doesn’t replace the fundamentals of marketing – it magnifies them. Brands that move fast, break down silos, and master the basics will emerge as industry leaders.

To everyone who joined us in Savannah: thank you for bringing your ideas, candor, and curiosity. We’ll see you next time!

Hungry for more? Check out our financial services hub for the latest and greatest financial services content from Yext.