78 Ambitious and explorative – this is how analysts describe the adoption of AI across the financial services sector. Companies have been quick to see opportunities to enhance innovation, efficiency and customer experience. But to reap the rewards, they must also tackle new threats. “For financial services firms, the question is no longer whether AI can create value, but how they can industrialise it in a controlled, explainable, resilient and auditable way,” says Bastian Bahnemann, financial services industry compliance and business development lead at Microsoft. “AI – especially agentic AI – can increasingly influence decisions, trigger workflows, access sensitive data and interact with core systems. Unlike traditional systems, the speed of change and evolution of models is rapid and dynamic. That means the control model must evolve as well.” Bahnemann advises organisations to structure their thinking around four compliance columns: contracts, off-cloud activities, in-cloud controls and other topics such as training, business continuity and broader regulatory readiness. However, he says, most AI risks cut across these categories. “AI risk is not a separate category anymore,” he says. “It is part of mainstream prudential, cyber and operational risk management. Models like Claude Mythos have shown that advanced cyber capability is being compressed into multi-AI-model and AI agent powered tools which identify vulnerabilities, improve exploit paths and materially reduce the time from discovery to attack. That doesn’t just create a technology challenge; it changes expectations around patching discipline, baseline hygiene, thirdparty oversight and operational resilience.” In this environment, a ‘deploy fast, govern later’ approach doesn’t work. AI maturity demands both ambition and a clear strategy for adoption and governance. “Many organisations start with technology enthusiasm and try to add governance later, but that creates friction in regulated industries like financial services,” says Bahnemann. “A AI brings new challenges, as well as opportunities. Microsoft’s Bastian Bahnemann explains how financial firms can combine transformation with resilience and trust BY JACQUI GRIFFITHS FEATURE compliance Mastering and risk withAI
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