AI and the future of retail financial services (The Mills Review)

Read The Mills Review (PDF)[2]

Purpose of the review

In the future, firms and consumers are likely to delegate more financial decision-making to AI systems. AI will not only be a technology to assist people, but will recommend actions, initiate transactions, and execute decisions within agreed parameters.

The FCA Board asked executive director Sheldon Mills to lead a review into how these advances in AI could transform retail financial services. 

The review builds on the FCA's existing work on AI, while recognising that agentic AI has the potential to fundamentally change how financial services operate.

How the review was carried out

The review was based on a blend of analysis, research and engagement.

This included feedback gathered from firms, trade bodies, consumer groups, technology providers and international stakeholders as part of an Engagement Paper[3] published in January 2026.

It also draws on commissioned research[4], involving a survey of more than 5,000 UK financial services consumers, FCA-led focus groups and comparative analysis of international approaches to AI adoption and regulation.

Key findings

• Retail financial services are moving from human-led, towards AI-enabled, continuous and delegated services.
• AI could reshape the sector by 2030 – changing how firms operate, consumers make decisions, markets compete and risks emerge.
• AI could improve outcomes and support growth by reducing friction and tackling long-standing challenges, such as advice gaps, low switching and protection gaps. But it could also amplify risks associated with fraud, cyber security and consumer harm.
• Consumer adoption will depend on trust, control and access – even though 1 in 5 UK adults are already open to AI making decisions for them.

Recommendations

The review makes 7 priority recommendations for the FCA Board to consider:

1. Secure and adapt the regulatory perimeter.
2. Strengthen system-wide coordination and oversight.
3. Monitor the transition to autonomous models and adapt regulatory frameworks.
4. Scale up the FCA's AI Lab[5] to support AI models and system innovation in financial services.
5. Enable the foundations for agentic finance.
6. Build and adopt an AI-enabled agentic supervisory model.
7. Develop a trusted public-interest AI-enabled financial capability service.