Governance as a protector of successful AI deployment in financial services

To unlock the opportunities of AI financial services firms will need clear governance from the very beginning of their AI journey.

There are many benefits to seek from looking to deploy AI in financial services, including productivity gains operational efficiencies, the ability to deliver bespoke customer focused services, liberating human talent for high value activities, enhanced consumer understanding, and the automation of manual compliance monitoring.

However, the prize will only come for those firms that can effectively manage the legal, data and ethical challenges. For those firms that can embed AI in their centre and align their leadership behind their vision, and support this with strong governance and ethical oversight, there will be a clearer route to success and competitive advantage.

Why is this so important for FS businesses?

Financial services is a highly regulated space. It is also data intensive and concerns around data security, privacy, governance and risk management are likely to be of critical importance to those in the industry looking to experiment, deploy and scale up their AI capabilities.

AI is fast moving and will continue to bring, novel and never seen before problems. Financial services firms will need to pre-empt these before they become issues. and those firms that have strong governance at their core and rapidly address changing risks, will be able to secure market advantages.

Governance that is adaptable and transparent will be well positioned to scale responsibly and effectively, enabling innovation whilst also managing risk. This is the kind of governance that will be needed to gain the trust of the regulators, the consumers of financial services and products, and the wider markets.

For those firms that are unable to embrace the right mindset, there is a high risk of AI deployment being ineffective, resulting in negative experiences. The financial services markets will undoubtedly need to experience this before it fully embraces the most responsible way forward. Those experiences will be learnings for all involved.

Many financial services firms will be spinning intrinsically linked projects to deploy AI in their service offering. They will need to address, aside from governance, related activity in data, cloud adoption, training, and working practices, with the end-game resulting in an upskilled workforce that embraces new technologies, new ways of working and an ability to adopt to change faster than ever before.

This cross-operational governance needs to be embedded at the centre of the business and embraced across all parts, from top to bottom.