Farmers State Bank uses agentic AI to deliver digital convenience without losing the personal touch
What started as a single AI agent at Farmers State Bank has become a blueprint for scaling agentic AI with trust, control and long-term impact. An open, governed orchestration layer connects agents across the enterprise without lock-in, enabling this transformation.
Farmers State Bank (FSB) is a trusted community bank committed to delivering personalized service, financial stability and modern banking convenience to the customers and communities it serves. With a long-standing tradition of integrity and relationship-focused banking, FSB blends hometown values with forward-looking innovation to meet the evolving needs of individuals, families and businesses.
Through strategic investments in digital transformation—including agentic AI solutions such as Penny—FSB continues to expand access, enhance service quality and provide secure, reliable banking experiences across every channel.
FSB is redefining what modern banking looks like by leveraging agentic AI to bring the bank closer to its customers.
With the introduction of “Penny,” an agentic artificial intelligence (AI), conversational assistant powered by IBM® watsonx Orchestrate® and developed by Incede.ai, FSB has created a seamless, personalized experience. This experience blends digital convenience with the warmth of a community bank relationship. Penny reimagines customer engagement and modernizes internal service delivery, standing as a defining achievement in FSB’s digital transformation journey.
“Penny is about more than technology—it’s about strengthening our connection with customers by ensuring every interaction is responsive, consistent and truly personal.” — Ryan Clevidence, CEO
As larger financial institutions continue to optimize for scale and efficiency, the customer experience often becomes impersonal and transactional. FSB recognized that its customers—both existing and prospective—value something different:
- A personal connection with their banker
- Convenient access to services without friction
- Confidence that their needs are understood and handled with care
The answer was clear: embrace digital innovation without compromising the personal touch that defines the FSB.
Customers increasingly expect the speed, accessibility and convenience of digital banking such as immediate answers, easy scheduling and on-demand support. At the same time, they continue to value the personalized, relationship-driven experience that defined the FSB’s mission since 1907.
Balancing these expectations presents a strategic challenge, as FSB seeks to deliver modern digital capabilities without compromising the high-touch, personable service that is central to its customer-first approach. This effort requires a thoughtful integration of technology and human engagement.
Through discovery sessions with FSB executives, branch leaders and compliance officers, several operational opportunities emerged:
- Customers frequently contacted FSB branches for routine needs such as branch hours and directions, travel alerts, lost or stolen card guidance, fraud concerns and appointment scheduling.
- Customers and prospects could not easily get answers or act outside of normal banking hours, resulting in missed opportunities and delayed engagement.
- Staff was routinely diverted from relationship-building activities, as multi-branch coverage required the employees to juggle phone calls, emails and walk-in inquiries simultaneously.
These pressures were especially evident during peak hours, when call queues grew longer and customer frustration increased. At the same time, the underlying systems supporting these interactions were fragmented, requiring manual coordination across tools that were not designed to interoperate in a standardized, scalable way.
Variability in responses across staff and channels created inconsistencies in customer experience and information delivery. Customers often did not know which banker to contact, leading to delays, misrouting or suboptimal service experiences. Customers were required to navigate between the website, phone calls and in-branch visits without a seamless or guided experience.
The website functioned primarily as a static information repository rather than an interactive, action-oriented channel, resulting in missed opportunities to engage customers and connect them efficiently to the right banker or service.
Facing growing customer expectations for faster, more convenient support, FSB set out to deliver a new banking experience—one that preserved its personal, community-focused service while embracing modern, intelligent technology. Leadership recognized that customers increasingly expect immediate answers, seamless appointment scheduling and consistent guidance across all channels. At the same time, the FSB wanted to reduce the operational strain on frontline staff, who were frequently pulled away from relationship-building activities to address repetitive inquiries.
“Penny is helping us reimagine the banking experience,” says Scott Falagan, Chief Retail Banking Officer, “where customers can engage on their terms, receive immediate, accurate guidance and still feel connected to the people who know them best.”
To meet these goals, FSB sought a solution that could automatically answer customer questions, schedule appointments with relationship bankers and alleviate pressure on staff. This solution also needed to ensure that every interaction was fully auditable and compliant with regulatory standards.
This vision led to Penny, an agentic-AI solution designed and deployed by Incede.ai and powered by IBM watsonx Orchestrate. Penny serves as a centralized orchestration layer that governs how agents interact with enterprise systems, data and users.
After evaluating multiple technologies, FSB selected IBM watsonx Orchestrate for its strong alignment with the bank’s security, operational and customer-service goals. One of the primary drivers was its ability to support true agentic workflow automation. Unlike simple chatbots, watsonx Orchestrate® can perform multi-step tasks, orchestrate complex workflows with deterministic outcomes and securely hand off actions to integrated banking systems. It does that by using open, standardized interfaces that avoid vendor lock-in and enable long-term flexibility.
This open orchestration approach allows FSB to connect agents across a diverse set of enterprise systems, whether cloud-based or on-premises. It extends seamlessly across hybrid environments without requiring bespoke integrations for each use case.
Equally important was its enterprise-grade security and compliance posture. The solution incorporates controls aligned with financial industry standards, offers fine-grained access permissions and integrates cleanly with FSB’s existing identity and auditing systems. This integration ensures that every automated action maintains full regulatory and policy compliance. Furthermore, governance models are inherited directly from underlying systems, preserving permissions, enforcing policies and maintaining complete auditability across every agent-driven interaction.
“Selecting the right platform for agentic AI isn’t just a technology decision—it’s a long-term strategic commitment to how your organization will operate, serve customers and scale.” — Ryan Clevidence, CEO
FSB chose Incede.ai for its deep expertise in agentic-AI design and deployment, particularly for solutions that must be secure, auditable and aligned with strict regulatory frameworks. As an IBM Business Partner, Incede.ai worked side by side with FSB leaders in interactive workshops to document real customer workflows, identify operational bottlenecks and create high-confidence user journeys.
"Incede.ai didn’t approach this as a vendor delivering a solution—they operated as an extension of our team.” — Ryan Clevidence, CEO
Penny helps customers locate the most convenient branch and guides them to the banker best suited to their needs. She enables seamless appointment scheduling, on-demand callback requests and real-time SMS engagement. When questions extend beyond her immediate knowledge, Penny retrieves relevant information from FSB’s website and curated internal documents to ensure accurate, reliable responses.
Rather than replacing the human connection, Penny strengthens it—removing friction, guiding interactions and ensuring every customer has a clear path to meaningful engagement with FSB staff. Watsonx Orchestrate coordinates these interactions as a unified control plane across agents, systems and workflows.
With the introduction of Penny, FSB is intentionally leveraging technology to make banking more personal and more connected. Penny is not designed to replace the banker, but to bring customers closer to them. Employees benefit from simplified workflows and reduced operational strain, while customers experience easier access, faster responses and more consistent service. A hybrid architecture enables these outcomes while scaling across other systems, channels and use cases without reengineering integrations.
“Penny has been well-received by our staff because it simplifies their work and supports consistent service,” says Scott Falagan, Chief Retail Banking Officer
Penny represents a strategic investment by FSB in strengthening long-term customer relationships. Early adoption and positive sentiment reinforce that Penny is delivering real value today while positioning Farmers State Bank for sustained long-term impact.
Farmers State Bank’s success with Penny demonstrates what’s possible when agentic AI is built on a foundation designed for trust, flexibility and scale.
Powered by IBM watsonx Orchestrate, FSB has delivered an AI-driven experience that is secure by design, seamlessly integrated with existing systems and capable of evolving as customer needs grow.
With watsonx Orchestrate as the control plane for its agent ecosystem, FSB connects agents in an open, standardized way, extends workflows across hybrid environments. It also enforces governance consistently, ensuring that every interaction is trusted, auditable and compliant.
The result is not just a solution for today, but a scalable foundation for personalized, always-on banking—where innovation and trust evolve together.