At the third edition of ComplyConnect London in June 2026, Comply brought together senior compliance professionals from across financial services for a day of sessions on AI governance, the FCA\u2019s evolving supervisory posture, nonfinancial misconduct, and market abuse. What followed was one of the more honest conversations the industry has had on these topics. <\/p>\n
Here is what stood out.<\/p>\n
A live audience poll at ComplyConnect London put AI governance well ahead of regulatory change and cost pressure as the number one challenge compliance teams face today. 48% of participants ranked AI as their single biggest challenge over the next year. That result was not surprising to most in the room. <\/p>\n
Firms are moving fast on AI adoption. The compliance function is trying to keep pace to build governance frameworks, assess risk, perform gap analysis, identify use cases, and write policies and procedures. Private markets, operational resilience, and financial crime remain standing priorities for the FCA. Now, AI governance is an emerging priority alongside them. <\/p>\n
For compliance teams, the implication is straightforward. The absence of a specific AI rule is not the same as the absence of an expectation. The work of building documented governance frameworks falls on the firm. <\/p>\n
The era of employees logging into compliance platforms and navigating UIs to complete tasks is ending. In the AI keynote session, Comply\u2019s Chief Product Officer, David Bliss, showed how Comply is moving into the agentic era. <\/p>\n
The future is agentic.<\/p>\n
Agent-driven workflows \u2013 where AI completes tasks for the end user \u2013 are the future of technology.<\/p>\n
A live demo of the ComplyAI MCP Server illustrated what that looks like in practice. An adviser requested approval to purchase a stock entirely through a conversational AI prompt. The ComplyAI agent collected the required information, confirmed details with the employee user, submitted the preclearance request, which ran through restricted lists and trade rules, and returned a decision \u2013 without the user touching the Comply Platform directly. The audit trail is identical to a manual submission. <\/p>\n
Compliance leaders are still making all the decisions. The AI acts as a pass-through. Approval and denial logic sits entirely within the firm\u2019s existing rule engine, unchanged. The agent is the interface, and the controls remain where they have always been. <\/p>\n
This distinction matters both for regulatory purposes and for practical risk management. Firms evaluating AI-assisted compliance workflows should be asking not just whether the technology works, but where the decision authority sits \u2013 and how a compliance team member can articulate the decision making process to a regulator. <\/p>\n
The FCA\u2019s non-financial misconduct rules came into effect in September 2025. Having updated policies in place is the start, not the finish line. <\/p>\n
The regulation ties non-financial misconduct explicitly to market confidence, innovation, and economic growth, a framing that elevates it well beyond a people management issue. Firms that treat it primarily as an HR matter are likely to find themselves with gaps when the FCA looks at how cases were triaged, handled, and documented. <\/p>\n
This is a cross-functional challenge. Compliance, legal, and HR need shared triage processes that determine which cases fall under the FCA\u2019s Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) <\/p>\n
The grey areas are where firms will struggle. Egregious cases are relatively straightforward. Firms need playbooks, not just policies. <\/p>\n
Documentation must capture reasoning, not just decisions. The panel cited recent enforcement cases as a reminder that investigation records will face legal scrutiny. Firms need to record not just what was decided but why a decision was made. <\/p>\n
Managers are responsible for what they knew or reasonably should have known, and for taking proactive steps within their authority. Training programs need to move beyond spotting issues to ensuring managers understand the standards expected of them and can demonstrate action. <\/p>\n
Prediction markets were a hot topic during the market abuse panel.<\/p>\n
The current position for UK-based participants is but that doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t risk. Kalshi and Polymarket \u2013 two of the leading prediction market platforms \u2013 restrict contract trades in the UK. However, bad actors could find a way to work around the limitations. <\/p>\n
If you\u2019re a global firm operating in the United States or other countries that allow contract trades, it\u2019s important you address prediction markets in your compliance policies and ensure employees have attested they understand your policy. If you\u2019re a firm operating solely in the United Kingdom, it is still worthwhile to address prediction market trading with a clear outline of what is and is not acceptable. <\/p>\n
ComplyConnect London was an incredible convening of compliance professionals to engage with the hard questions, the specific operational details, and the genuine uncertainty that sits underneath the compliance calendar.<\/p>\n
ComplyConnect London will be back. Check back on our website and our LinkedIn<\/a> to learn about more Comply events<\/a> in the UK and beyond. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":14235,"menu_order":0,"template":"","resource_type_tax":[160],"delivery_method_tax":[],"certification_tax":[],"class_list":["post-14319","resource_posts","type-resource_posts","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","resource_type_tax-blog-article"],"acf":{"resource_button":{"title":"","url":"","target":"","0":""},"resource_date":"","include_bdt_time":false,"is_press_release":false,"is_paywall":false,"newsletter_type":"global","resource_feed_clone":{"resource_feed_group":{"show_section":false,"section_headline":"","more_link":null,"use_recent_resources":true,"resources":false}},"gate_this_content":false,"resource_description":" Senior compliance professionals gathered in London to tackle the issues defining 2026. Here’s what we heard. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n"},"yoast_head":"\n