Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Malhotra stated at the FIBAC 2026 annual banking conference that artificial intelligence will be the defining force of the next decade, urging Indian banks to view AI as a board-level strategy rather than a simple technology procurement. He warned that banks that are slow to act risk losing control over this transformation. Malhotra pointed out that AI can assist in financial judgment, expand credit accessibility, enhance customer service and fraud detection efficiency, and emphasized that AI should support rather than replace human judgment. He also listed seven major risks in AI applications, including the interpretability of black-box decisions, bias, concentration risk, and data privacy.