For fintechs, wedge products usually look like a smaller version of the main product so you can get in the door while the bigger platform contract is still locked up.
I feel like the next wedge may look less like a product and more like a workflow that gets solved before the bank is ready to replace anything. This is exciting and depressing at the same time. Exciting because making the decision smaller is a great strategy when selling to FIs, and depressing because going to market with workflows isn't going to excite anyone inside the fintech.
But we may be able to spice things up a bit, because AI may create those wedge opportunities in places that don't look like traditional product categories or feel like "products" in the old sense. They may feel like work getting easier. So that's the new wedge.
A bank may not be ready to rip out its digital banking platform (actually, they seldom have been and seldom will be), but it might be very ready to solve a workflow that drives staff time, customer frustration, or operational risk. Especially if the AI layer can sit around or inside the existing environment instead of forcing a massive conversion.
There's also a positioning angle here. A lot of AI companies are selling big platform visions that can sound impressive, but community and regional FIs often need something more concrete. They need to know: where does this live, who uses it, what work does it remove, what approvals are in place, and how does it avoid creating more risk?
So the wedge may be:
"We can help your staff respond to secure messages faster."
Or:
"We can help business banking customers understand cash flow without waiting for a banker."
Or:
"We can help your team build a task-specific agent around the weird sticky-note workflow that only your institution has."
That last piece is especially interesting. Community banks and credit unions have lots of workflows that are too specific for a generic AI product and too small for a major consulting engagement. They are the things people have patched together over time: a spreadsheet here, a manual review there, a note on someone's desk, a workaround everyone knows but no one has documented. I call them "sticky note problems."
AI can become a wedge by going after that kind of work.
The other reason this is interesting is that it changes the sales motion. Instead of selling AI as a broad capability, the fintech can sell applied AI capacity. Then it starts to feel less like "buy this software" and more like "give us a portion of the budget you're already considering for AI, and we'll turn it into usable workflows."
For those who love a bulleted list, AI wedge products should:
- Work around existing software and services contracts.
- Solve a visible workflow problem.
- Create a path back to the broader platform.
For those (like me) who love a good one-liner:
The wedge is the workflow.
Jury is still out, but I think the fintechs that win may be the ones that make AI feel less like another product to evaluate and more like a problem the bank can finally take off someone's desk.