More than 10 million UK adults could soon see their finances managed by an AI agent, according to a landmark review published this week by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
The Mills Review, which examines the role of AI in retail financial services, found that one in five adults are already open to letting AI make financial decisions on their behalf. The finding signals a profound shift in consumer attitudes and raises pressing questions about whether the UK’s regulatory framework is prepared for a world of delegated, machine-led money management.
According to the review, retail financial services are moving away from human-led models and towards AI-enabled, continuous and delegated services, as detailed by Areg Nzsdejan, CEO of Cardamon, in a recent LinkedIn post. The report suggests this transformation could fundamentally reshape the sector by 2030, leaving firms and regulators with a narrowing window to adapt.
The review strikes a careful balance between opportunity and risk. On one hand, AI could improve consumer outcomes and support growth across the industry. On the other, the technology could amplify risks associated with fraud, cyber security and consumer harm, threats that regulators are already struggling to contain in a pre-agentic world.
Crucially, the review found that consumer adoption will hinge on three factors: trust, control and access. Without confidence that AI agents will act in their interests, consumers are unlikely to hand over the reins to their finances, no matter how capable the technology becomes.
The review sets out seven recommendations to the FCA Board. These include securing and adapting the regulatory perimeter, strengthening system-wide coordination and oversight, and monitoring the transition to autonomous models while adapting regulatory frameworks accordingly.
The remaining recommendations urge the regulator to scale up the FCA’s AI Lab to support AI models and system innovation in financial services, enable the foundations for agentic finance, build and adopt an AI-enabled agentic supervisory model, and develop a trusted public-interest AI-enabled financial capability service.
Taken together, the recommendations amount to a call for the FCA to modernise not only the rules it enforces, but the way it supervises the market itself, deploying AI to oversee AI. How quickly the FCA Board acts on these proposals may determine whether the UK leads or lags in the coming era of agentic finance.
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