UK FS see AI communication surge as compliance gaps emerge, study shows

By Puja Sharma

• Around 61% of finance professionals now use generative AI daily, with 69% reporting a significant increase in content creation.
• AI is deployed across 49% of call notes and summaries, 50% of reporting tasks, 40% of client communications, and even 34% of compliance documentation.
• Only 32% believe monitoring systems can fully detect AI-related risk, while 81% say proper organisational oversight would increase their confidence in using AI tools.

New research from Smarsh®, the communications data and intelligence platform, has revealed that generative AI has rapidly evolved from an emerging tool to a fixture of daily working life for UK financial services and insurance professionals – with 61% now using it every day. However, as AI tools become embedded in all areas of work, organisations are struggling to keep pace with the need to monitor and govern the resulting content, creating new and potentially significant compliance risks.

AI moves from experimentation to daily workflow

While younger workers (aged 25-34) are driving this change, with over 36% using AI tools multiple times a day, there is clear cross-generational uptake. Nearly a third (32%) of 35–54-year-olds are using AI tools daily, while over a quarter (28%) of 55–64-year-olds say the same. The consequence is a significant increase in the volume of business communications, with 69% saying it is increasing the amount of content they produce.

Crucially, the study found that AI is not being used solely for administrative convenience. While it is widely deployed for internal tasks such as briefing notes (50%), call summaries (49%), and internal communications (37%), it is also being applied to external and regulated content – including client and customer communications (40%), marketing and social media content (38%) and, notably, compliance documentation (34%). The scale and scope of this output present a material risk for firms, particularly given that fewer than half (41%) of professionals say they thoroughly review and make significant edits to AI-generated outputs before they are sent or published.

Oversight gaps are emerging as AI scales, but workers see compliance as an enabler

Despite this proliferation of AI-generated content, the research reveals a significant gap in organisational oversight. Fewer than a third (32%) of financial services professionals believe their organisation’s surveillance systems are fully equipped to detect risks in AI-generated content. This concern is felt most acutely among younger professionals (43% of those aged 25-34), the same demographic that is driving AI usage, suggesting that those most active in producing AI-generated content are also the most aware of the compliance blind spots it creates.

However, the findings also point to an important opportunity for firms. The majority of financial services professionals (81%) say they would feel more confident using AI tools for work-related tasks if they knew the outputs were monitored by their organisation correctly – a 12% rise compared to when the same question was asked a year ago. This sentiment was also felt most strongly amongst younger professionals (87% of those aged 18-34). Far from being resistant to oversight, employees – especially those most actively using AI – are calling for it.

“Financial institutions are rapidly adopting generative AI to meet growing demands for faster, more personalised client engagement—but this shift is creating an unprecedented volume and complexity of communications,” said Paul Taylor, Vice President of Product at Smarsh. “Compliance leaders are now under pressure to ensure every AI-assisted interaction is transparent, supervised, and defensible. Firms need the ability to capture and govern these communications across all channels, or they risk introducing critical blind spots at a time when regulatory scrutiny is intensifying. Getting this right isn’t just about risk mitigation—it’s about enabling innovation with confidence.”