UK Regulator Draws Hundreds of Applicants for Two Senior AI Roles

The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has attracted hundreds of applicants for two senior AI positions as it builds tools to supervise more firms and prepares for systems that can act on customers’ behalf.

FCA chief data, information and intelligence officer Jessica Rusu described the response to the openings as “hundreds of really high-quality applications.” The positions cover AI research and the security of the regulator’s digital systems.

One leader would direct research into agentic AI and data science. The role includes AI strategy, model governance and potential uses of the technology in work against financial crime.

The other would lead security operations for the FCA’s technology and AI services, overseeing a department of about 70 employees. The role includes maintaining service resilience and managing how the regulator detects and responds to disruptions.

The FCA is recruiting while developing AI tools for its supervisory work. About 60,000 firms subject to anti-money-laundering oversight are expected to enter its remit in 2028, and the regulator is building tools to help supervise them.

The FCA is also developing an AI agent to help oversee transaction reporting by about 9,000 smaller wholesale-market firms. That project addresses a separate supervisory task from the planned expansion of its anti-money-laundering remit.

The regulator is considering how AI agents might act for customers, including by handling payments and investments. Such activity raises questions about how an agent establishes its identity, receives authority from a customer and remains accountable for its actions.

“AI is moving faster than any regulatory framework was designed,” Rusu said in an Oct. 19 speech. The FCA plans to work with industry and other regulators on approaches to those questions.

On Oct. 19, the FCA published examples of good and poor AI practice for financial firms. They address consumer outcomes, accountability and operational resilience but create no new requirements, consistent with its approach to applying existing rules to AI.

The examples give firms a view of how the FCA assesses AI use under current obligations. Its planned work with industry and other regulators will focus on identity, authority and accountability when agents act for customers.