If you're already a Kasisto customer
If your bank works with Kasisto today, nothing breaks. Kasisto's platform, team, and roadmap now sit inside Backbase's Banking OS, and the combined agentic banking suite is available immediately to existing and future customers.
The practical shift: Kasisto's conversational and agentic AI no longer runs as a standalone layer bolted onto whatever core and CRM you already have. It's embedded in an operating system that connects intent to execution. That includes collecting evidence, checking eligibility, applying policy, and resolving the request end to end, not just answering it.
Jouk Pleiter, CEO and Founder at Backbase: "With Kasisto inside the Banking OS, no one is better positioned to lead the shift from conversation to resolution."
BMO's own Conversational Banking deployment shows what that looks like in production: it resolves up to 81% of inbound customer requests without human involvement.
Why this acquisition matters beyond Kasisto
Most banks have deployed agentic AI in isolated pockets. An agent handles the contact center. A chatbot handles digital self-service. Neither talks to the other, or to the systems behind them.
That's the gap agentic banking is designed to close, and it's exactly what this acquisition targets. Purpose-built financial services intelligence, combined with a unified operating layer, is a different proposition than a conversational AI point solution operating on its own.
If you were comparing vendors
Most banks searching "Kasisto alternatives" were really asking five questions: Does it resolve, or deflect? Does it reason across context? Was it built for banking? Is compliance built in? Does it lock you into one model? Those questions still matter. They just have one answer now instead of two.
Resolution, not deflection. According to Decagon's chatbot industry benchmarks, best-in-class deployments contain 70-80% of conversations end to end. Average deployments barely clear 40-55%. That's the bar the combined platform is built to hit.
Context, not scripts. The platform reasons across account history, recent transactions, channel, and what a customer has already said, instead of breaking the moment a conversation leaves a predefined flow.
Built for banking. Kasisto was purpose-built for financial services from the start, not adapted from a generic AI stack. That shows up in edge cases: dispute windows, regulatory holds, KYC exceptions, where a wrong answer is a compliance problem, not just an annoying one.
Compliance as architecture. Every action a conversational agent takes carries a Decision Token: a real-time authorization from Sentinel that records the policy applied, the actor's identity, and the outcome, checked before the action executes. That's what governs who can act on behalf of whom, and what gets logged for audit.
No new lock-in. Vendor lock-in was already identified as a risk factor by 44% of banks using third-party chatbot providers. The combined platform works with any LLM, so this acquisition doesn't trade one lock-in risk for another.
What banks gain
- Lower cost to serve
- One vendor relationship instead of two
- Compliance built into the architecture
- Conversations that complete instead of deflecting
- A larger US team and footprint behind the platform
None of this requires banks to do anything differently today. It just means the platform underneath got stronger. See how the broader conversational banking platform landscape is shifting, or explore the Banking OS it now runs on. Or read why most AI chatbots for banks still fall short of end-to-end resolution.
FAQs
Did Backbase acquire Kasisto?
Yes. Backbase announced the acquisition on June 23, 2026. Kasisto's agentic AI platform, financial services intelligence, and New York-based team are now part of Backbase's AI-native Banking OS.
What happens to my existing Kasisto deployment?
Nothing breaks. The combined agentic banking suite is available immediately to current and future Backbase customers. Kasisto's platform is embedded at the core of the Banking OS.
Is Kasisto still a separate company?
No. Kasisto is now part of Backbase. Searches for "Kasisto alternatives" or "Backbase vs Kasisto" both point to the same combined platform today.
Do I need to look for a Kasisto alternative?
Only if you're evaluating agentic AI for banking generally. If Kasisto specifically was on your shortlist, it's now evaluated as part of Backbase's Banking OS, not as a standalone vendor.
