Financial services organizations are investing in better visibility into applications and AI systems as regulatory and operational requirements grow, according to findings from New Relic’s 2026 Observability Forecast for Financial Services.
The industry report, announced October 20, analyzes how banks, insurers and other financial institutions are monitoring software performance while introducing artificial intelligence into business workflows. New Relic said the need to understand AI behavior, outages and compliance exposure is influencing purchasing decisions.
AI applications can rely on models, data services and third-party software that behave differently from conventional applications. When a failure occurs, technology teams may need to determine whether it arose from an application, a data pipeline, a model interaction or a supporting service.
New Relic said financial organizations are extending observability practices to cover AI-related workloads and agents. Tracking these systems can help teams investigate unexpected output or performance deterioration, although monitoring alone does not establish whether an automated decision is legally or operationally appropriate.
Financial institutions often face specific requirements around record retention, incident handling and third-party technology risk. As AI systems move into operational workflows, teams must connect technical evidence with internal accountability and oversight.
The findings sit within New Relic’s broader 2026 forecast, which surveyed IT and engineering professionals across industries and geographies. The financial-services report should not be interpreted as a measurement of all financial institutions in Asia, and its results should be attributed to survey respondents.
New Relic has previously reported that ASEAN organizations are adopting AI observability tools at a relatively high rate but continue to lose engineering capacity to service disruptions. The sector-specific report offers a different view, focused on the operating requirements of financial organizations.