On 30 September 2026, the Bank of England (BoE) published a new ‘Insights’ webpage from David Bailey covering frontier AI and the question of governance.
Mr Bailey explains that frontier AI matters to the BoE as it has important implications for financial stability. Most immediately, it materially increases the scale and sophistication of cyber threats facing the financial system. A key question that the webpage addresses is whether society should retain the ability to intervene, to establish the boundaries within which frontier AI systems operate and to revise those boundaries as the technology evolves. In response Mr Bailey says the answer is “unequivocally yes”. Mr Bailey then turns to the question of how intervention can be possible and effective. He feels that a sensible starting point is rigorous model testing, conducted before and after deployment. But testing should not be seen as an alternative to future regulation, nor as a complete solution. Understanding, testing and establishing credible points of intervention must come first.