How Posh's AI Operating Procedures Redefine Banking Automation with Agentic Reasoning

A breakthrough system that resolves banking’s greatest AI tension, balancing agency and adherence with blazing speed.

For years, banks and credit unions have relied on rigid automation that follows rules instead of reasoning. Today, Posh AI, the leader in conversational and agentic AI for financial institutions, announced Operating Procedures, a breakthrough system that transforms banking automation by combining intelligence, compliance, and control, powered by Posh’s upgraded reasoning engine, REALM™ 2.0.

Operating Procedures mark a shift from rule-based automation to agentic AI intelligence. They give AI assistants the ability to think, act, and adhere to policy, delivering the speed and accuracy of a trained employee with the reliability of institutional policy.

Why It Matters

Despite years of AI headlines, most financial institutions still rely on static call trees and brittle scripts that automate without adapting. These systems break the moment a customer veers off the predefined flow - the “happy path” - unable to interpret how people actually phrase questions or shift topics mid-conversation. The result is rigid automation that demands constant upkeep, struggles to stay compliant, and fails to deliver the intuitive, humanlike experiences customers now expect.

Some vendors boast about thousands of “intents,” but in fact volume often means more work. Operating Procedures eliminate the need for massive intent libraries, replacing pre-scripted responses with adaptive reasoning that learns from institutional knowledge rather than human-coded patterns. The result: faster deployment, simpler maintenance, and AI that evolves safely within institutional boundaries.

“Legacy systems are predictable, but they are not intelligent,” said Karan Kashyap, Co-Founder and CEO of Posh. “We built Operating Procedures to make AI useful, not just conversational; AI that understands what’s being asked, why it matters, and how to resolve it via humanlike dialogue while staying within policy.”

The Challenge: Agency vs. Adherence

As banks explore large language models, they face a defining challenge: how to give AI the agency to reason and adapt while maintaining strict adherence to compliance, security, and policy. Too much freedom risks drift; too much control negates the intelligence of the AI itself, like blindfolding and handcuffing a great artist.

Operating Procedures solve this tension. They act as the governance layer for reasoning, granting AI the intelligence to act and the structure to stay within bounds. Every response follows institutional rules and reasoning, much like a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) but designed for an AI agent.

“Humans have Standard Operating Procedures to guide complex work,” said Kashyap. “Operating Procedures bring that same structure and intelligence to AI agents, giving them the ability to reason, act, and adapt just like people do, with both autonomy and guardrails.”

The Breakthrough: From Scripts to Systems That Think

Operating Procedures are the new operating system for AI in banking. Each Procedure functions like a Standard Operating Procedure for AI, defining the desired outcome while allowing flexibility in how it’s achieved.

When a customer speaks, the AI follows a simple, governed reasoning flow:

1. Priority Workflows — If a request matches a defined process or compliance-approved response, the AI triggers that Operating Procedure.
2. Knowledge Responses — If it’s not a priority action, the AI retrieves from verified institutional knowledge.
3. Conversational Fallbacks — If nothing fits, the AI shifts to a natural, chat-based fallback designed to maintain engagement safely, or brings a human in the loop.

This layered logic ensures the AI always knows what to do, where to draw from, and when to stop guessing. When uncertainty arises, it’s not confusion, it’s information. A moment of “not knowing” signals a missing workflow or gap in institutional knowledge, helping teams identify where to strengthen their systems rather than masking the issue.

With Operating Procedures, AI agents can:

• Progress through steps intelligently, skipping or revisiting as needed without losing context
• Recover from interruptions or off-topic questions
• Draw dynamically from institutional knowledge
• Eliminate hard-coded scripts and unruly intent libraries
• Safely navigate compliance boundaries
• Integrate with core banking systems to execute authenticated actions

The result is a single intelligent system that reasons across thousands of workflows, ending intent overload and ushering in agentic automation that acts with confidence, accountability, and speed.

REALM 2.0: From Reasoning to Real-World Operation

Powering every Operating Procedure is REALM 2.0, Posh’s next-generation reasoning engine. REALM orchestrates institutional knowledge, retrieval, and policy controls to enable safe, explainable AI operations in real time. It’s built for speed without shortcuts, handling complex reasoning with the accuracy of a well-trained employee.

REALM 2.0 also delivers significant latency improvements, particularly in Voice, ensuring humanlike responsiveness. Every Operating Procedure is tested through AI Simulation and refined in collaboration with clients and vendors.

Together, REALM 2.0 and Operating Procedures enable Agentic Reasoning, AI that can reason, plan, and act safely within institutional guardrails.

From Conversations to Operations

Traditional AI assistants answer questions. Operating Procedures complete processes.

They can execute complex workflows, from password resets and balance inquiries to loan payments and account updates, while enforcing compliance and escalating when necessary.

Because responses are configurable, ranging from dynamically generated to deterministic, pre-approved language, institutions define the goal, and the AI orchestrates the safest way to achieve it. When precision matters, institutions can enforce deterministic language and scripted phrasing within an Operating Procedure, ensuring sensitive interactions stay fully compliant and on-message.

Posh Voice connects directly into existing CCaaS, IVR, and contact center systems, allowing institutions to modernize without replacing infrastructure. This “plug-in, not rip-and-replace” model reduces vendor lock-in, preserves flexibility, and strengthens ROI.

Why Posh, Why Now

While other vendors bolt generative AI onto legacy frameworks, Posh built a reasoning-first architecture designed for financial institutions from the ground up. Its platform unifies intelligence, governance, and control across five pillars: Knowledge, Reasoning, Control, Integrations, and Security.

With over 100 institutions and 280 deployments, Posh remains the trusted AI partner for secure, explainable, and high-performing financial systems.

“Operating Procedures mark the end of intent overload,” said Kashyap. “It’s time for AI that doesn’t just talk, it acts. And it does so in a way that institutions can trust, explain, control, and ultimately scale out.”

For more information, visit posh.ai.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251217646720/en/

The result is a single intelligent system that reasons across thousands of workflows, ending intent overload and ushering in agentic automation that acts with confidence, accountability, and speed.