AI adoption is continuing to accelerate across UK financial services, with 80% of firms responding to a detailed regulatory survey reporting that they have deployed AI agents.

However, just 2% reported deploying agents with broad autonomy, highlighting the limited extent to which financial institutions are allowing the technology to make and execute decisions independently.

The findings come from a new joint report by the Bank of England and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), published on Monday (26 October), examining how financial services firms are adopting, managing and governing AI.

The research gathered responses from 196 firms, including banks, insurers, investment firms and other financial services providers. Of these, 105 completed the full survey, which included detailed questions about AI agents.

Among respondents to the full survey, 80% reported having AI agents deployed, with a further 14% planning to introduce them over the next 12 months.

Most deployments remain focused on supporting human decision-making rather than replacing it entirely.

While 80% reported using agents to provide decision support, 46% had deployed systems capable of executing actions within predefined rules, and 22% reported using agents with conditional autonomy, where human approval is required for certain actions.

Only 2% had introduced broadly autonomous agents capable of initiating and executing actions with limited real-time human involvement.

Enterprise productivity and coding agents were the most widely deployed types, while customer-facing applications remained less prevalent.

For example, 16% of respondents reported using AI agents for automated customer communications, rising to 34% when planned deployments were included.

By contrast, no more than 9% expected to use agents for sensitive activities such as executing trades, initiating payments or approving customer outcomes, even when planned deployment over the coming year was considered.

The wider survey also found that 86% of responding financial services firms were using AI, compared with 75% in 2024 and 58% in 2022, although the regulators cautioned that differences in respondents and survey scope limit direct comparisons.

Generative AI accounted for 56% of all reported AI systems, while operations and IT represented the largest area of deployment, accounting for approximately 31% of systems.

Cybersecurity and Third-Party Risks

Alongside growing adoption, the research highlighted increasing concerns surrounding cyber security, operational resilience and dependence on external technology providers.

Third-party implementations accounted for 39% of reported AI systems, compared with 33% in 2024. They also represented 53% of systems classified by firms as highly material, up from 35% two years earlier.

The report identified significant concentration among cloud and computing providers, with the three largest accounting for 79% of reported cloud and compute relationships.

Information security and operational resilience were identified as major constraints on third-party AI adoption by 40% of respondents, while 34% cited limited transparency into external AI systems.

Cyber risk amplification was also identified as the most significant systemic concern associated with widespread AI deployment.

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Some 57% of respondents rated the current risk of AI-related cyber threats being exploited at scale as high or severe, with that figure rising to 80% when considering the next one to three years.

Governance remains another challenge. Although 94% of full-survey respondents reported having firmwide AI policies, principles or standards, ongoing monitoring, leakage testing and periodic system reviews were each reported by only around half.

The findings suggest that while AI is becoming increasingly embedded in UK financial services, organisations continue to face challenges in managing more autonomous systems and ensuring appropriate oversight.

The Bank of England and FCA said the results provide evidence of AI adoption and risk management among participating firms, rather than a comprehensive assessment of the entire UK financial services sector.