The Financial Conduct Authority has said that the number of companies using artificial intelligence has more than doubled.
FCA senior adviser Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen said that firms using AI has increased from around 30% to 70%.
She spoke about the subject yesterday (11 May) at Money Marketing Interactive in Leeds.
She said that one big example of AI being implemented by firms are chatbots.
The Bank of England and the FCA launched the AI Public-Private forum (AIPPF) in October 2020.
The purpose behind the AIPPF was to further dialogue on AI innovation between the public and private sectors.
One area it focused on was the practical challenges of using AI within financial services, as well as the barriers to deployment and potential risks.
The AIPPF ran for one year, with four quarterly meetings and a number of workshops.
The FCA, BoE along with the Prudential Regulation Authority also launched a discussion paper (DP) on AI which closed in February 2023.
One aspect of the DP was to decipher how the current regulatory framework applies to AI.
Gormsen added that AI would be nowhere without data, which acts as the food and fuel of AI.
While discussing technology giants during her talk Gormsen said the job of the FCA is not to regulate Big Tech firms.
Gormsen elaborated that only regulated firms have to follow FCA rules. She added that Big Tech firms have very different business models.
One thing the regulator has seen is that Big Tech firms are very good at taking advantage of their own data.
Gormsen is currently pursuing litigation against Meta but made it clear she is doing this personally and not the FCA.
In March 2023 Gormsen wrote for Money Marketing and expressed her view about the power of Big Tech.
She said: “Big Tech companies are global and, as such, we will need to engage with international counterparts to ensure any regulatory approach enables the potential benefits while mitigating important competition and consumer harms.
“Engagement with financial conduct regulators, central banks and competition authorities internationally will be critical to creating an effective competition regulatory approach.”
Gormsen elaborated during her talk that the FCA is working with regulators in Asia, US, Europe and Australia to better understand how to handle Big Tech.
