UK banks must be more like Big Tech to catch the US on AI, which comes with a high price

UK banks must act like big tech companies and less like startups if they want to emulate the success US banks have had with artificial intelligence (AI).

According to research from Evident, which tracks financial services AI adoption, US banks lead the way. In its latest banking AI adoption index, six of the top 10 banks are US-based.

JPMorganChase leads the way, followed by fellow US giants Capital One, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.

In the UK, HSBC made the top 10, as did Australia’s CommBank, Switzerland’s UBS and the Royal Bank of Canada.

Evident said these leading banks for AI maturity have pulled away from their peers in 2025, consolidating earlier gains and increasingly realising a return on investment for their spending on AI.

It found that the top 10 banks are accelerating on AI adoption more than twice as fast as the rest of the field, as early AI investments translate into business value.

Evident CEO Alexandra Mousavizadeh warned that banks that fall behind may never make up the ground. “We’re at a point in time now where there will be a moment when, as a lagging bank, you can’t catch up,” she said.

Mousavizadeh suggested UK banks need to be more like Big Tech when it comes to their AI adoption if they are to catch up with their US counterparts.

Talent is key in being able to do this, she told Computer Weekly. “As we all know, there’s a war on talent, and that’s intensifying as the race for enterprise AI adoption increases,” said Mousavizadeh.

“Your talent is your destiny,” she added. “That’s always been true, but I think for now it’s even more true because we’re in this pivot moment, where there’s been a couple of years of experimentation and testing with use cases being implemented, but it’s a very surface-level.”

Evident’s index revealed that no UK bank places in the top 10 for AI talent.

Mousavizadeh said there are now examples of projects that go much deeper, with some of the advanced banks ahead on this.

“The tectonic plates are shifting right now. It’s all about scale and rewiring the organisation so they’re fit for full-on generative AI, agentic AI use cases,” she said.

The change requires a different way of thinking deeper into the business.

“We’ve gone from having CEOs and tech leadership teams being all-in, and making sure AI is a very clear priority, but now it’s gone down a level, where it’s heads of lines of business that think about rewiring the business through AI.”

This requires a different sort of thinking, she said, with people like those at the Big Tech companies being targeted at a high price.

“You need AI product managers, and AI thinking from Big Tech or academia. That’s where the battle is being fought because these people are really, really expensive and the banks are trying to get hold of this talent,” said Mousavizadeh.

She said there has been a 26% increase in AI talent at banks, which is more pronounced at the bigger organisations.

Part of the challenge in the UK, she said, is that while there is AI talent and a wealth of startups in fintech developing AI, enterprise adoption experience is lagging in comparison to the US.

“In terms of the proximity to Big Tech talent, the US banks have an advantage. The UK [has a] very strong startup community, but that’s not really the kind of talent they need for enterprise take-up, said Mousavizadeh.