UK banks need to be more like Big Tech in order to catch up with the US in AI, but it comes at a high cost

UK Banks must act more like big tech companies than startups if they wish to emulate the success US banks had with artificial intelligence.

According research from Evident which tracks AI adoption in financial services, US banks are leading the way. In its latest

Six of the top ten banks are based in the United States. JPMorganChase is the leader, followed by other US giants Capital One and Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo as well as Bank of America.

In Britain, HSBC, Australia’s CommBank and Switzerland’s UBS made the top 10. The Royal Bank of Canada, Australia’s CommBank and Switzerland’s UBS also made the list. Evidently, these leading banks in AI maturity have pulled ahead of their peers by 2025. They have consolidated earlier gains and are increasingly realising returns on investment from their AI spending.

The top 10 banks are accelerating AI adoption at a rate more than twice that of the rest of their field as early AI investments have translated into business value.

The CEO of the company is a clear example.

Alexandra Mousavizadeh () warned that banks who fall behind might never catch up. “We are at a time when a lagging institution will not be able to catch up,” she said. Mousavizadeh said UK banks should be more like

Big Tech is the only way to catch up to their US counterparts when it comes AI adoption.

She told Computer Weekly that talent is the key to being able do this. “As everyone knows, there is a talent war, and it’s intensifying with the increasing adoption of enterprise AI,” said Mousavizadeh. She added, “Your talent is the key to your success.”

“That has always been true but now it is even more so because we are in this pivotal moment where there have been years of testing and experimentation with use cases, but they’re only at a surface-level.

According to Evident’s AI talent index, no UK bank ranks in the top 10. Mousavizadeh stated that there are now projects that go deeper, and some of the more advanced banks are ahead in this area.

The tectonic plate is shifting right now. She said it’s about scaling and rewiring organisations to be ready for full-on generative, agentic AI usecases.

This change requires a new way of thinking that goes deeper into the business.

“We went from CEOs and tech leaders being all-in and making sure AI was a clear priority to now having heads of lines of businesses who think about rewiring business through AI.”

You need AI product managers and AI thinking that comes from Big Tech or the academia. This is where the battle takes place because these people are very, very expensive and the banks want to grab hold of them,” said Mousavizadeh. She said that there has been an increase of 26% in AI talent within banks, and this is more pronounced for the larger organisations.

She said that while the UK has a lot of AI talent, and there are many fintech startups developing AI, the enterprise adoption experience in the UK is behind the US.

In terms of proximity to Big Tech talent the US banks have the advantage. Mousavizadeh said that the UK [has a] has a very strong startup community but they don’t need that talent for enterprise take-up.