techUK Report - Agents of Change: Generative and Agentic AI in Financial Services 2026
Artificial intelligence is no longer arriving in UK financial services. It is already here, and it is already working. From real-time agentic fraud detection operating in live contact centres to AI systems reshaping how capital markets firms conduct research and how insurers price supply chain risk, the deployments documented in this report are not pilots. They are production systems embedded in live operations, producing results that are measurable and material.
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Generative AI is becoming mainstream across productivity, research, and customer operations, with 61% of surveyed firms using or assessing the technology in 2025. Agentic AI, systems that pursue objectives autonomously across multiple steps and interconnected environments, is moving from experimentation to live deployment, with 42% of firms using or assessing it last year. The question is no longer whether AI creates value in financial services. It is how governance, assurance, and operational resilience frameworks keep pace with increasingly capable systems.
In this report, techUK examines the state of generative and agentic AI deployment across UK financial services, drawing on use cases submitted by member organisations spanning technology providers and financial institutions. The report documents live deployments across fraud and financial crime, customer operations, capital markets, insurance, and payments. It identifies the governance challenges firms are actively working through, including behavioural drift, human oversight at scale, AI supply chain concentration, and the implications of advanced AI for cyber resilience.
The UK enters the second half of 2026 with genuine competitive advantage. It is home to the world's leading international financial centre, the largest technology ecosystem in Europe, and a principles-based regulatory framework that allows firms to innovate responsibly. This report sets out three shared priorities for the ecosystem to pursue together to build on that position:
Establishing a dedicated workstream on agentic AI governance. Using an existing public-private forum such as the Bank of England and FCA's AI Consortium to develop practical guidance and shared approaches to the governance questions agentic systems raise.
Expanding shared AI deployment infrastructure. Building on the FCA's Supercharged Sandbox model with increased capacity to meet demonstrated demand and sustained investment in the FCA's AI Lab as the UK's leading environment for responsible AI experimentation.
Strengthening AI supply chain resilience through greater transparency from technology providers, continued investment in dependency mapping and substitutability planning by financial services firms, and progress on the UK's Critical Third-Party designation regime.
The report was developed through written engagement, virtual workshops, and webinars with techUK member organisations across the financial technology ecosystem, and features use cases from Google Cloud, Lloyds Banking Group, IBM, Cohere, Nvidia, Marsh, Microsoft, DXC Technology, NayaOne, and others. The foundations are strong. The directions and recommendations in this report are intended to build on them.
Financial Services Programme activities
The techUK Financial Services programme connects tech firms, the FS industry, and regulators to ensure innovation and technology can be fully embraced. Through market engagement activities and events, we help to empower decision makers and aid collaboration.
Our members develop strong networks, build meaningful partnerships and grow their businesses as we all work together to create a thriving environment where industry, government and stakeholders come together to realise the positive outcomes tech can deliver.
James leads our financial services programme of activity. He works closely with member firms from across the sector to ensure innovation and technology are fully harnessed and embraced by both industry and regulators.
Prior to joining us James worked at other business organisations including TheCityUK and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in roles focused on supporting the financial & related professional services eco-system, with a particular focus on financial technology and market infrastructure.
Junior Programme Manager - Financial Services & SME Engagement
Lourdes de Miguel
Junior Programme Manager - Financial Services & SME Engagement
Lourdes de Miguel joined techUK in January 2026 as a Junior Programme Manager in the Financial Services and SME Engagement programmes.
Lourdes supports the financial service programme’s mission of connecting firms from across the ecosystem to ensure innovation and technology can be fully harnessed by financial services. She also assists the SME team to help members meet, network and collaborate with their peers, industry leaders and customers.
Prior to joining techUK, Lourdes gained experience in research, finance, and stakeholder engagement across several organisations. Starting off at Elcano Royal Institute in Brussels, she supported seminar creation and event organization engaging with key policymakers and industry leaders developing an understanding of European policymaking. She later joined Swift, assisting the Industry Engagement team to build connections with Central Banks and other international bodies as well as developing research on macroeconomic topics.
Lourdes holds a BA (with honours) in Politics and International Studies from the University of Warwick.
Programme Assistant, Data Centres, Climate, Environment and Sustainability, Market Access, techUK
Lucas Banach
Programme Assistant, Data Centres, Climate, Environment and Sustainability, Market Access, techUK
Lucas Banach is Programme Assistant at techUK, he works on a range of programmes including Data Centres; Climate, Environment & Sustainability; Market Access and Smart Infrastructure and Systems.
Before that Lucas who joined in 2008, held various roles in our organisation, which included his role as Office Executive, Groups and Concept Viability Administrator, and most recently he worked as Programme Executive for Public Sector. He has a postgraduate degree in International Relations from the Andrzej Frycz-Modrzewski Cracow University.
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