Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a blooming field of technology, in which the banking and financial services sector has also seen growth. The main use of AI in them is the advancement in customer service, more efficiency in operations, and better decision-making. The most cited publications in this field concentrate on the use of AI in chatbots, robo-advisors, machine learning in banks and generative AI. AI in the banking sector also incorporates the concerns of credit scoring, customised financial services, and regulatory compliance. The current study focuses on comprehending the progression and transformation of the emerging AI technology in the banking sector using the bibliometric analysis (BA) approach. The study uses 735 documents from the Scopus database covering the period from 2001 to May 2025. The study highlights the trends and interests of AI in the banking sector and how the conceptual framework of academic literature in AI for the banking sector changes over time. The study shows the global distribution of this concept and its impact on the research publications. Other factors like the major global contributors, collaborators, emerging themes and trends, and author impact are also illustrated in the study. The findings reveal that the rise in AI was triggered more by the digitalisation accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The global coverage in academic publications was verified in the study with the diversified contributions from developed and developing countries, like the UK and India. The study offers assistance to researchers, policymakers, and finance professionals in encouraging inclusive and ethical use of AI by presenting an extensive assessment of the domain.