Demystifying Agentic AI: What Midlands Financial Services Leaders Think

We sponsored The Business Desk’s roundtable, bringing together senior leaders from investment, banking and financial services across the Midlands to explore one of the most significant shifts in how organisations operate. 

4th June 2026
 

On Thursday 4th June, we were proud to sponsor The Business Desk’s closed roundtable on Agentic AI. For many organisations, the question is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how to deploy it in a way that is controlled, trusted and commercially meaningful. 

The session brought together senior professionals from investment management, retail banking and financial services firms to explore a more pressing question. Are organisations moving fast enough to remain competitive, while managing the realities of regulation and risk? 

What emerged was a clear shift in mindset. AI is no longer being viewed as a standalone technology. It is becoming a core enabler of how work gets done, how decisions are made and how organisations compete. 

Key themes from the room 

From experimentation to inevitability 

Leaders were clear that competitive pressure is accelerating adoption, with growing recognition that firms who delay risk being left behind. The focus is shifting from isolated pilots to real deployment. 

At the same time, many organisations are still working through how to integrate AI into legacy environments and established processes. The challenge is embedding AI effectively. 

AI as an enabler, not just a tool 

The discussion moved beyond automation. Agentic AI is enabling organisations to rethink how work happens, particularly in document-heavy, information-intensive processes. 

Rather than simply layering AI onto existing workflows, the opportunity lies in redesigning processes around it. This includes supporting knowledge workers to reach outcomes faster, with AI generating insight and humans retaining oversight. 

The context challenge 

A consistent theme was the importance of context. For AI to deliver meaningful value, organisations need to organise and structure their internal knowledge effectively. 

Much of the sector’s value remains locked in unstructured data such as documents, reports and contracts. Without a strong foundation for managing and accessing this information, even advanced AI systems struggle to perform. 

Building this “context layer” is emerging as a critical capability. 

Governance – The real blocker 

Across financial services, governance and control were identified as the primary barriers to progress. 

AI is now firmly on the board agenda, but organisations remain cautious. Regulatory accountability means that decision-making, particularly in areas such as lending and underwriting, must remain human supervised. 

As a result, many firms are approaching AI as they would a new member of staff – train it, monitor it, build trust over time. 

Risk versus opportunity 

The sector’s natural focus on risk is shaping how AI is adopted. Several leaders highlighted that financial services firms are heavily weighted towards managing downside risk rather than capturing upside opportunity. 

At the same time, external pressures from investors and the wider market are increasing the urgency to act. AI is seen not only as a growth driver, but also as a potential source of disruption if ignored. 

“The big challenge is being able to curate all the context. If you can’t build that context layer and feed it to agents, you’ll always be catching up.”
— Roundtable attendee 

The discussion made clear that Agentic AI is reshaping how financial services organisations operate, not just the tools they use. 

Success will come from embedding AI in a way that balances innovation with control, builds trust internally and externally, and aligns to the realities of a highly regulated environment. 

Read the full roundtable write-up

Published Monday 8th June.
Round table report: ‘Deploy it or disappear’ – financial services leaders warn AI is becoming a business survival issue | TheBusinessDesk.com

Thinking about Agentic AI for your organisation? 

Speak to our team about what this means in practice for financial services firms. 

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