Every company had an AI story to tell.
What struck me wasn’t the volume of discussion. It was how similar much of it sounded.
That’s not necessarily a criticism. AI is still relatively new territory. Companies are investing heavily, products are evolving quickly, and many teams are working out exactly where AI creates value and how that value should be communicated- particularly in financial services. The technology and the story around it are being developed at the same time.
But after a few days walking the conference floor, I found myself wondering whether the industry’s biggest challenge isn’t innovation at all- it might be distinction.
As I listened to presentations and conversations, I heard plenty about capabilities, investment, transformation, and opportunity. What I heard far less of were the questions that might help organisations find a more distinctive position:
- Do customers care that AI is embedded within a payments process?
- If they do, what aspect of it matters to them?
- What questions are they asking that the industry isn’t answering?
- What concerns do they have that aren’t being addressed?
- And perhaps most importantly, what does your organisation want to be known for in a market where everyone appears to be talking about the same thing?
For me, that’s where marketing has an opportunity to lead.
Not because marketing owns AI, it doesn’t. But marketing is one of the few functions that sits at the intersection of customer understanding, competitive positioning, and business strategy. It has visibility of what competitors are saying. It has access to customer insight. It understands the themes the businesses want to be associated with and the audiences they are trying to reach. That combination puts marketers in a strong position to challenge assumptions and shape the conversation before it reaches the market, because if every organisation arrives at the same conclusions, uses similar language, and builds content around the same themes, it becomes increasingly difficult to stand for anything distinctive.
And that’s a risk that extends beyond the topic of AI.
As AI becomes more widely used in content creation, topic development, and go-to-market planning, convergence accelerates. More content, more activity, more commentary, yet less differentiation.
Many organisations are using AI to build something distinctive. The challenge is that when they come to market, that distinction often gets lost in a sea of very similar messaging. Marketing can help prevent that. Not by creating louder messages, but by asking better questions:
- What does the market actually care about?
- What conversations are already overcrowded?
- What perspective can only we credibly own?
- What do we want to be known for three years from now?
Those questions are unlikely to be answered by another conference panel, another AI-generated thought leadership piece, or another industry talking point. They require a clear understanding of customers, competitors, and company strategy.
Of course, financial services operates within a heavily regulated environment. Compliance is an essential part of the process, and not every idea survives contact with governance and risk teams, that’s understandable. The pursuit of a distinctive position shouldn’t begin and end with compliance considerations, though. It should begin with understanding the market, understanding customers, and deciding what your organisation wants to stand for.
That was my biggest takeaway from Money20/20. The challenge isn’t a lack of innovation. It’s a lack of distinction.
About the Author: Jack Sampson
