As UK financial services continue to embrace AI at breakneck speed, new research from FIS warns that consumer confidence is failing to keep pace with innovation, creating a trust gap that banks may soon be unable to bridge. 

The global fintech’s latest consumer pulse survey, drawing insight from 2,000 UK adults, found more than a third (38%) of the public believes banks are pushing out new technology too quickly, as opposed to just 7% who want them to speed up.

FIS said that this suggests the pace of AI adoption in finance is moving faster than the public are comfortable with, despite its already deep integration across institutions.

The study found that while banks are pinning their hopes on AI for a competitive edge, their customers remain wary, with mistrust threatening to blunt the benefits of innovation, with a third (33%) of consumers saying they have no trust at all in genAI, a figure virtually unchanged from 2023.

More worrying for banks pushing AI solutions, 50% of the UK public report that the technology makes them anxious, a scepticism manifested in their reluctance to use it. For example, while 72% of those polled said they had heard of AI chatbots, 43% claimed never to have used them. 

According to FIS’s data, public distrust of AI is rooted in a lack of understanding. Despite banks weaving AI into the background of basic processes, like fraud detection systems, loan decisioning, and transaction monitoring, 50% of consumers said they did not see how AI could improve their financial experience.

The report warns that behind-the-scenes use of the tech may be a missed opportunity to increase familiarity, meaning it is down to banks to “educate as they innovate” to show consumers how they are interacting with AI, even on a daily basis, without realising it.  

There are some practical areas where banks can more easily bring their AI use into focus, however.

When asked where they would like to see AI prioritised, almost a quarter (23%) of consumers said fraud detection and prevention, 22% pointed to identity verification, and 18% thought it could enable faster customer service.

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As these are functions where AI is already heavily embedded for many banks, they may present a clear route to closing the confidence gap.

“AI is already embedded in proven use cases such as fraud detection, faster payments, and personalised recommendations, helping make banking faster and more convenient, but if customers don’t understand how it works or how it helps them, trust will never follow,” said Kanv Pandit, head of international markets, banking and payments at FIS.

“The challenge for banks is not just to innovate, but to educate and reassure. Every new technology launch should come with a clear explanation of how it keeps consumers’ money safe and their data protected. Every AI deployment should come with plain-English education about what it does, why it matters, and how it protects customers.”