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Customer-facing AI is moving from answering simple questions to influencing decisions and completing tasks. This shift is changing the assurance problem. Our AI in Risk & Compliance 2026 research finds that 65.6% of reported AI activity has reached production or beyond, while 69.3% of institutions say deployment is ahead of the measured control environment. Firms now need evidence that customer-facing AI continues to behave appropriately before, during and after release.

Regulatory change is usually presented as a volume problem. Often, the harder problem is relevance. A new publication may affect only one product, legal entity, jurisdiction or control. Another may repeat an existing position without changing the firm's obligations. A third may look minor at document level but alter a requirement that touches multiple policies and business processes. In our 2026 research, 57% of respondents rated the AI-related risk in compliance management

The middle of the market is already well beyond isolated experimentation. Production deployment spans five domains and high AI-related risk spans four, while control coverage reaches four of thirteen capabilities. This profile provides a quantitative overview of AI adoption, spending, controls and more.

AI is now a material part of the risk and compliance technology stack. A directional comparison of two Parker & Lawrence Research studies suggests that AI spending is equivalent to roughly 30% of wider risk and compliance technology budgets. In previous years, AI had a clear ROI problem. This year, the reported returns are encouraging, although uneven. All 300 senior risk and compliance professionals in our 2026 study selected a positive realised ROI band.

Four in five financial institutions using high-autonomy AI in at least one risk and compliance domain report no AI incident-management procedures in place, according to new research from Parker & Lawrence Research. The finding comes from AI in Risk & Compliance 2026, a new primary research report based on surveys of 300 financial institutions across the UK, France, the US, Australia, Singapore and the UAE.

Enhanced due diligence has always been a trade-off between speed and rigour. Anti-money laundering obligations require organisations to untangle complex ownership structures, verify sources of wealth, investigate adverse media and litigation, and assess vast quantities of information, all while avoiding unnecessary friction for legitimate customers.