WHAT WE FOUND
We reviewed eighty of the world's leading financial institutions, across eight sectors, against a single question: not whether each uses AI, but whether it can publicly demonstrate control over the systems on which it increasingly depends.
The pattern is consistent. Where institutions demonstrate control, the evidence concentrates at the model layer — how models are governed, validated, and operated — and thins across the rest of the stack. Disclosure on autonomous agents is limited. On the infrastructure beneath them — compute, data centers, and power — it is sparser still.
A second theme recurs across every sector: the distance between aspiration and demonstration. Capability is described in the language of governance, and pilots in ways that suggest broader deployment, more often than the public record substantiates.
Governance describes what an institution intends to do. Control describes what it can demonstrably do. This report measures the distance between the two.
Why financial institutions are different
Deep — control runs the full stack.
Wide — control reaches across the chain.
Wide — control reaches across the chain.
The AI you rely on does not run on software alone. It runs on agents, models, data centers, compute, and power. The questions that decide your exposure — where it executed, under whose key custody, in which jurisdiction — live below the application layer. Control that stops at the software is not control.
Wide — control reaches across the chain.
Wide — control reaches across the chain.
Wide — control reaches across the chain.
You do not operate most of the AI you depend on. It runs inside your asset managers, your asset servicers, your providers — firms whose systems produce the numbers that land in your books and your duty. Control that stops at your own walls leaves the rest of your exposure unguarded.
The eight sectors
How the eight sectors compare
Based on publicly available information reviewed under our methodology, banks show the greatest prevalence of publicly disclosed AI control and private equity the least, with the other sectors distributed between them. Across every sector, demonstrated control concentrates at the model layer and thins toward the autonomous-agent layer now entering production.
Asset Owners — The Stewards of Capital.
Disclosed control sits at the model layer and remains partial at the typical level. A small number disclose named internal mechanisms that reach an evidenced standard; many disclose more about AI as an investment theme than about control of their own AI.
Asset Managers — The Allocators of Capital.
Among the stronger-disclosing categories at the model layer. Most over-read at the agent layer, where capability is described as governed production more often than the record supports.
Asset Servicers — The Operational Backbone.
Cluster at an evolving posture on the model layer. The sector illustrates the report's central distinction: a named platform is a capability, not in itself a control mechanism.
Banks — The Engines of Intermediation.
The strongest-disclosing sector reviewed, with evidenced control across the logical and operational handling of models — and the only sector where any institution discloses command of the infrastructure layer.
Wealth Managers — The Custodians of Advice.
Reach an evidenced standard on the model layer at the typical level; several inherit disclosed control from a banking parent. Agentic operation is disclosed at an evolving stage.
Retirement Providers — The Guardians of Long-Term Security.
Sit at an evolving posture, with leaders reaching evidenced control through named, full-lifecycle governance frameworks and deployed tooling.
Private Equity — The Owners and Builders.
The least-disclosed sector on the public record. The explanation is structural: the dominant footprint is investment in, and deployment of, AI elsewhere — not control of the firm's own AI.
Insurance — The Protectors of Risk.
An evolving posture with a leading edge among large European groups reaching evidenced control, reflecting a regulatory-culture effect: published, named governance frameworks with mandatory principles and accountability roles.
Request the report
The State of AI Control in Institutional Finance is available on a relationship basis to qualifying institutions.
All discussions covered under NDA. Tiers reflect public-disclosure completeness, not assessments of any institution's actual controls.
The report does not evaluate, certify, or benchmark any individual institution. Tiers reflect the completeness and nature of public disclosure as reviewed under the methodology described herein. Grey (Not Disclosed) indicates the absence of public disclosure, not the absence of control.
REQUEST THE REPORT
The State of AI Control in Institutional Finance is available on a relationship basis to qualifying
All discussions covered under NDA. Tiers reflect public-disclosure completeness, not assessments of any institution's actual controls.
AI is a given. Control is not.™
