Leading on AI

For the senior leaders, the Leading with AI programme will focus on areas including identifying transformational opportunities for AI and spearheading its implementation.

Raoul-Gabriel Urma, CEO at Cambridge Spark, said that embedding AI know-how at the top of organisations is vital: “Advancing AI capabilities represents both the greatest challenge and opportunity for today’s businesses. Enhancing these capabilities in senior leadership creates a powerful multiplier effect that drives innovation throughout the organisation.”

The Bank of England and the FCA have been tracking how financial services firms in the UK are using AI and machine learning. The results of its recent survey, which covered 120 firms, found that three-quarters are already using some form of AI in their operations. This included all the large UK and international banks, insurers and asset managers that responded, and represented a 53% increase on the same survey in 2022.

There will be challenges for senior bank leaders who must understand the risks that AI poses as well as its benefits, as they will be expected to work within regulatory regimes.

During an international financial conference in October, Sarah Breeden, deputy governor of financial stability at the Bank of England, said that regulation must stay ahead of AI take-up.

She said this will “help us to understand more deeply not only AI’s potential benefits, but also the different approaches firms are taking to managing those risks which could amount to financial stability risks”.

The regulator will then try to spread best practices and decide when regulatory guidelines and guardrails are needed. “The power and use of AI is growing fast, and we mustn’t be complacent,” said Breeden. “We know from past experience with technological innovation in other sectors of the economy that it’s hard to retrospectively address risks once usage reaches systemic scale.”