Bank chatbot platform Kasisto acquired by Backbase

• Key insight: Kasisto, an early developer of bank chatbots, has been acquired by an international bank software company.
• What's at stake: The deal expands Backbase's U.S. footprint shortly after it launched an AI-powered bank operating system.
• Supporting data: 79% of chatbot users in a recent Commonwealth survey expressed trust in their primary bank's chatbot.

Kasisto, a company that builds AI chatbots for banks, has been sold to bank software provider Backbase.

Kasisto announced on Tuesday that it was purchased by the Amsterdam-based provider of customer-facing software for banks for an undisclosed amount. Kasisto's agentic platform and New York-based team are now part of Backbase and its Banking Operating System, or OS, division.

The move expands Backbase's presence in the U.S. market and brings Kasisto's AI chatbot services to the company's customer-facing bank software products. Kasisto's customers range from banks as large as JPMorganChase and TD Bank to community banks and credit unions such as Indiana-based First Financial Bank and California-based Meriwest Credit Union.

Kasisto has also partnered with bank software companies such as FIS, Finastra and Candescent, according to its website.

U.S.-based clients of Backbase and its AI-powered Banking OS, launched in April of this year, include Navy Federal Credit Union, Boeing Employees Credit Union and Alliant Credit Union.

"This acquisition sharpens our position as the strategic partner for banks serious about AI transformation," Backbase CEO Jouk Pleiter said in a statement. "Kasisto brings proven agentic AI and deep financial services intelligence, moving us decisively into the era where customers express intent naturally and the bank resolves it through governed, intelligent execution."

Backbase has embedded Kasisto's AI-powered virtual assistant technology into its consumer-facing Banking OS product offering, according to a company statement.

A November 2025 report from the financial well-being nonprofit Commonwealth found that in a national survey of 3,000 chatbot users, 90% of respondents completely or somewhat trust their primary bank and 79% expressed trust in the information they received from their primary bank's chatbot. 

The report noted that national survey respondents who had high trust in their bank were more likely to trust their bank's chatbot. In other words, customers seem to trust bank chatbots because they trust the banks attached to them.

"Conversational AI has the potential to supercharge relationship-building with customers and contribute to their long-term financial health, but only if they trust it enough to engage and incorporate it into their financial routine," the report's writers concluded. "The rise of generative AI marks a turning point in customer support and banking capability, but as these capabilities grow, trust becomes an even more important factor with new opportunities for it to be built or undermined."

The combined agentic banking offering built through the Kasisto acquisition is now available to all Backbase Banking OS clients.

"Agentic AI will reshape banking over the next decade," Kasisto CEO Lance Berks said. "Together, Backbase and Kasisto represent the convergence of the AI-native banking OS and purpose-built agentic AI and financial services intelligence, setting a new standard for how banks and financial institutions compete and win."