On 23 April 2025, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a summary of its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Sprint, which was held over two days in January 2025. It also published an accompanying blog highlighting some key lessons from the Sprint.

AI Sprint summary

At the Sprint, 115 participants from across industry, academia, regulators, technology providers and consumer representatives discussed how AI may develop in financial services over the next 5 years. They considered the FCA’s role in enabling firms to embrace the benefits of AI while also managing the risks. The Sprint focused on two main phases for teams to discuss – the next 5 years of AI in financial services, and the current financial services regulatory regime.

The FCA’s summary outlines 4 common themes that arose from participants’ discussions and suggestions:

  • Regulatory clarity: Participants highlighted the importance of firms understanding how existing regulatory frameworks apply to AI and suggested areas where the FCA could clarify or build on existing requirements to help firms understand regulatory expectations and to support beneficial innovation.
  • Trust and risk awareness: Trust in AI was flagged as being vital for its successful adoption, with participants noting that more seniors would buy into new AI use cases and more consumers would engage with new offerings if they felt able to trust AI.
  • Collaboration and coordination: Teams emphasised that all parties involved in AI must work together to develop solutions, including domestic and international regulators, government, financial services firms, academics, model developers and end users.
  • Safe AI innovation through sandboxing: Participants discussed the need for a safe testing environment to encourage responsible innovation, and suggested using the FCA’s sandboxes and innovation services to create that safe space, as well as providing access to datasets for innovators to develop and improve AI solutions.

Next steps

The FCA explains that the feedback and insights received during the AI Sprint, and from its AI Spotlight and AI Input Zone, have provided valuable information which is being used to shape its future work on AI. Areas of focus for the months ahead to address key issues raised include:

  • Launching the Supercharged Sandbox in order to provide a safe space to innovate.
  • Considering whether there are any areas of uncertainty where regulation could be restricting safe and responsible AI adoption.
  • Ensuring the FCA effectively influences the international standard-setting bodies’ work on AI to support safe and responsible adoption in the UK.
  • Collaborating with other regulators to explore cross-cutting considerations as well as collaboration opportunities on specific themes.
  • Communicating clearly about the FCA’s approach to AI and continuing engagement with stakeholders through the AI Lab (including running the AI Spotlight on an ongoing basis, with new themes to be added based on use cases discussed in the Sprint).