Assumption Scenario
Your Back Office
Lending operations FTE (processing, closing, post-close)
25
Loan servicing & collections FTE
15
Deposit ops & account opening FTE
15
Payments, wires & reconciliation FTE
10
BSA/AML, fraud & compliance ops FTE
15
Avg. fully-loaded FTE cost ($K/yr)
$85K
Share of time on manual, repetitive work (%)
50%
Avg. loan cycle time, application to close (days)
30 days
3-year net return
…
after all program costs
Year 1 net benefit
…
at 25% first-year capture
Payback period
…
months to break even
Capacity freed
…
FTE at full adoption
…
back-office FTE modeled
…
days removed from avg. loan cycle
Faster closes matter to borrowers, but we don't count them as savings. Cycle time shows up here as days only.
Where the capacity comes from
Year 1 net benefit breakdown (25% capture)
Process fixes before AI…
Assisted work (AI helps people work faster)…
Automated work (AI completes the step)…
Less: AI tools and usage costs…
Total Year 1 net benefit…
Dollars count only the freed capacity you redeploy or absorb through attrition. The capacity view shows the full amount.
Year 1 program investment
Optimus Insights fees
Process Assessment…
CLEAR Roadmap…
AI Operations Retainer (12 mo)…
Implementation partners & change mgmt…
Subtotal: consulting fees…
Client-side investment (est.)
Internal staff & project resources$150K
Technology, platforms & data prep$75K
Total program investment…
Implementation and client-side figures are planning estimates, scaled to the size of your back office. Consulting fees are Optimus Insights pricing. Schedule a call to scope your specific engagement.
3-year cumulative benefit vs. cumulative investment
Cumulative net benefit
Cumulative investment
Breakeven: calculating…
Banks capture benefits more slowly, so the ramp is 25% of the full amount in Year 1, 65% in Year 2, and 90% in Year 3, after ongoing AI costs. After Year 1, investment drops to a half-scope retainer plus maintenance.
CoreAssisted work: Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond, "Generative AI at Work," Quarterly Journal of Economics (2025). A staggered rollout of an AI assistant to 5,179 customer support agents raised issues resolved per hour by 14% on average, with much larger gains for newer staff. The conservative scenario uses 14% for assisted work.
CoreCapacity realization: EY US AI Pulse Survey, fourth wave (fielded Sept–Oct 2025). 96% of AI investors report productivity gains, yet only 17% reduced headcount. Most redeploy the time, so this model counts only the share of freed capacity you put to use.
NoteValue gap: BCG, "The Widening AI Value Gap" (Sept 2025). 60% of companies report no material value from AI despite substantial investment. Deloitte's 2026 Banking and Capital Markets Outlook, citing Evident, reports that only 4 of 50 large banks tracked in 2025 disclosed realized AI ROI.
NoteAutomation reality: Gartner (June 2025) predicts over 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by the end of 2027 due to rising costs, unclear value, or weak risk controls. This model sets lower automation for regulated, judgment-heavy work like BSA/AML, assumes people handle exceptions, and subtracts ongoing AI costs.
MethodPlanning assumptions: Process-fix gains, automatable share by area, AI completion rates, capacity realization, cycle time reduction, and AI run costs are Optimus Insights planning assumptions, not published benchmarks. In a Process Assessment we replace them with your own process and operations data.
Next step
Get the real numbers
for your bank.
for your bank.
The Process Assessment maps how your back-office work actually flows, finds your highest-value opportunities, and gives you a defensible business case in 2–4 weeks, starting at $20K. No pitch and no obligation.