FCA guides firms on AI use and anticipates era of agentic finance

Jessica Rusu, chief data, information and intelligence officer at the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), made the comments in a speech earlier this week in which she highlighted that 86% of UK financial services firms now use AI.

Rusu used her speech to flag new guidance the regulator has issued that examines good and bad practices the FCA has identified with firms’ adoption of AI. She said firms must keep the consumer duty in mind when using AI, stating that “AI should improve consumer outcomes, not simply automate existing processes”, and called on firms to “stress-test AI systems”, maintain fallback options, and understand supplier dependencies.

Rusu also raised concern that some firms are not investing sufficiently in AI governance, with the FCA citing inadequacies with generic, inconsistent and retrospective governance processes.

Rusu said, though, that the FCA wants the UK to “be at the forefront of the safe adoption of AI in financial services”. The regulator has moved forward with implementing six recommendations from the Mills review, which examined how AI might impact on retail financial services, and Rusu said it will work with others “to develop a trusted framework for agentic finance, including clear approaches to agent identity, delegated authority, accountability and execution”. In this regard, the FCA’s wants to “create the conditions in which agentic finance can thrive, with innovation and consumer protection built together from the start”, she said.

David Heffron, who specialises in financial services regulation at Pinsent Masons, said: “Jessica Rusu has reinforced that the regulator sees significant opportunities for AI to improve productivity, competition and growth, while making it clear that existing regulatory expectations around consumer outcomes, governance, accountability and operational resilience apply just as much to AI systems as they do to more traditional technologies.”

“Firms exploring increasingly autonomous and agentic AI solutions should take note of the FCA’s emphasis on continuous assurance, clear lines of responsibility and preparedness for system failures. The message is that innovation will be supported, but firms will be expected to demonstrate that AI enhances consumer outcomes and does not undermine trust in financial services. The speech also reemphasises the FCA's aim to become a more data-driven and AI-enabled regulator itself, shaping regulatory expectations through testing, supervision and real-world engagement,” he added.