Weekly

Issue 0012 October 2026
AI adoption in financial institutions

OUR MISSION

Helping your institution
succeed with AI.

Frontwise helps financial institutions navigate AI transformation. We track developments in financial data, investment research and institutional adoption, sharing practices and perspectives that matter.

Let’s enter the AI era together, with a commitment to learning.

Explore this issue
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Financial data · Institutional knowledge · Research workflows

IN THIS ISSUE

Putting AI to work in investment research and financial data

From data definitions and permissions to the way investment firms organise knowledge, retrieval and evaluation.

This issue at a glance

AI in investment research

Millennium’s employee AI assistants lead this section, alongside Ardian, Scale VP and Balyasny on institutional knowledge, retrieval and evaluation.

Financial data

Bloomberg, S&P Global Energy and FactSet illustrate three routes for financial data into AI workflows.

Institutions & governance

DBS’s phased rollout, alongside developments in Shanghai, Hong Kong and the US on approval, authority and accountability.

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Investment Research × AI

From individual tasks to repeatable research capabilities

Millennium | Embedding personal AI assistants in everyday workflows

Digital Twins in use
Over 1,600
Initial pilot
Over 150 twins
Daily interaction in pilot
97%

Millennium has made Digital Twins available to all interested employees. Working through email, they retain personal context and support research, monitoring and preparation. More than 1,600 are in use; 97% of the initial user group interacted daily, demonstrating sustained engagement within that cohort.

Each twin has a separate identity and audit trail. Access is granted system by system within the employee’s entitlements, enabling personalised assistance with clearly defined permissions.

OUR VIEWFrontwise View

Digital twins offer financial institutions a model for organisational design: an AI role with its own identity, a designated employee to support and explicit authority. Institutions can redesign delegation, review and accountability around that role. Research monitoring and preparation are natural starting points for investment teams; establishing digital twins and managing their boundaries is equally relevant across other functions.

Ardian | Bringing institutional knowledge into diligence and drafting

Drafting tasks covered
Over 70% less time
Priority use cases
12
Knowledge base
~30 years of deal experience

According to implementation partner JAKALA, Ardian Buyout organised historical deal materials into a knowledge layer with citations and version records to support investment drafting and due diligence. The team tested architectures using parallel specialist agents, opposing arguments and an independent evaluator to challenge investment assumptions.

The system drafts from existing documents and deal materials, while investment professionals review, challenge and finalise the work. Implementation partner JAKALA reports over 70% less time on the drafting tasks covered, highlighting efficiency gains in that part of the workflow. Professionals retain responsibility for judgement, argument and final delivery.

OUR VIEWFrontwise View

A cited, maintainable knowledge layer can make experience held within projects and individuals reusable across teams. The institutional opportunity lies in designing knowledge retention and human–AI responsibilities together: AI supports retrieval and drafting; professionals challenge assumptions and form judgements. Track time saved, citation quality and the experience of collaboration.

Scale VP | Connecting external data with internal deal history

Example query time
~30 min → under 1 min
Connected sources
Vendor data + CRM + notes
Controls
Authentication + call logs

Scale Venture Partners built an MCP server linking PitchBook, Salesforce deal records and partner notes to a research assistant. One specific question: which co-investors in a company had previously led rounds in deals the firm passed on? The assistant cross-references investor lists, deal history and the reasons for passing.

The firm reports that this cross-system query fell from roughly 30 minutes to under one minute, illustrating retrieval efficiency after external data and internal records were connected. The system checks identity per request, applies per-user rate limits and records tool calls. It returns clearly defined structured fields, with tools designed around actual research questions.

OUR VIEWFrontwise View

Searching external information alongside internal decision records helps preserve the reasons behind earlier judgements. Beyond investment research, this offers lessons for knowledge capture and collaboration across systems. Start with a recurring question: business teams define the information needed, while technology teams connect data and tools through familiar work channels.

Balyasny | Evaluate first, then let investment teams tailor agents

Evaluation dimensions
More than 12
Platform adoption
~95% of investment teams
Deployment model
Central platform + team customisation

An OpenAI customer case study describes how Balyasny evaluates models against internal data and benchmarks across more than 12 dimensions, including predictive accuracy and numerical reasoning, before production deployment. A central team builds shared components and compliance guardrails; investment teams customise agents by asset class.

The case study reports that roughly 95% of investment teams use the AI platform, indicating adoption coverage across those teams. A central team provides shared capabilities, while individual teams tailor applications to their research tasks.

OUR VIEWFrontwise View

Central provision with team-level customisation offers an organisational model that accommodates both shared capabilities and business differences. Common evaluations and components help experience accumulate, while teams retain scope to design for their own tasks. In research and other specialist functions, this division of work can turn isolated experiments into maintainable institutional capabilities.

Financial Data × AI

Bringing data services into research workflows

Bloomberg | Delivering financial data with interpretable context

Coverage
100m+ securities
Data fields
50,000+
Access foundation
Data License Plus

On 29 September, Bloomberg launched Enterprise MCP, adding a standardised AI access layer to Data License Plus. Alongside licensed data, the interface supplies field definitions, calculation methods, currencies, price types and data timestamps, helping agents assess whether a number fits the task.

The same “price” may refer to different exchanges, currencies or points in time. Delivering those definitions with the data supports reconciliation and explanation across sources. MCP is a standard protocol for connecting AI to external data and tools; institutions can assess completeness, interpretability and ease of use against specific research tasks.

OUR VIEWFrontwise View

Financial data services are bringing explanations of what numbers mean and how to use them into AI workflows. Shared definitions and provenance can help research, product and data teams collaborate on a common basis. Procurement and integration criteria can therefore extend beyond coverage to support for business understanding and knowledge reuse.

S&P Global Energy | Experts define the data; agents combine the queries

LNG data domains
7 agents
Domain experts own
Definitions + query examples
Access governance
Unity Catalog

In a case study published by Databricks, S&P Global Energy divides commodity datasets into narrowly scoped Genie agents by business domain. Domain experts maintain field descriptions, business definitions and trusted query examples. MCP then brings multiple agents together through a unified query interface.

For LNG, seven agents cover assets and contracts, cargo, tenders, outages, supply and demand, netbacks, and prices. Cross-domain questions can call the relevant data groups together. Underlying access retains Unity Catalog permissions, while benchmark questions support ongoing quality checks.

OUR VIEWFrontwise View

Domain experts maintaining business definitions, with engineers connecting tools, offers a practical model for building institutional AI data capabilities together. Expert knowledge can evolve with the business, while standard connections support reuse. Research, operations and data teams can make ownership explicit: who defines data, maintains knowledge and runs the service.

FactSet | Bringing licensed financial data into research workflows

Initial coverage
9 datasets
Beta adoption
45 firms
Beta users
800+ institutional users

FactSet’s original launch announcement describes a native MCP server offering unified access to nine datasets, including fundamentals, estimates, ownership, M&A, prices and supply chains. Institutions can call these datasets within AI workflows, reducing the need to rebuild connectors for each application.

The preceding Explorer beta involved 45 firms and more than 800 institutional users, indicating participation during testing. FactSet positions the service as governed, production-grade access, with institutions connecting content under their data entitlements. This earlier practice is shown with its original launch date.

OUR VIEWFrontwise View

A common access method offers a path to less duplicated integration and shared data capabilities across AI applications. Include entitlements, definitions and service maintenance in that shared architecture: data teams manage content and permissions, engineers maintain connections, and business teams build applications around real tasks. One integration can then support multiple specialist workflows.

Institutions × AI

Deployment in practice

DBS Hong Kong | Adding agent capabilities to corporate banking assistance

DBS Joy
Phased rollout from 26 Sep
digibot
Planned for 2027
Activation
Authenticated + customer-initiated

DBS Hong Kong announced a phased introduction of agent capabilities for its corporate banking assistant, DBS Joy, from 26 September. Customers can ask about payment status, transactions and fees, with the assistant retrieving and analysing relevant account information to reduce navigation across pages.

Agent capabilities for the retail assistant digibot are planned for 2027. Both rely on authenticated, customer-initiated interactions and retain access to human service. The announcement reports a 16% reduction in hotline calls from Joy’s existing service, providing context for its established service base as the new agent capabilities roll out in phases.

OUR VIEWFrontwise View

Phasing adoption by customer group and task offers a useful implementation model. As assistants move from answering questions to using tools, product, operations, technology and service teams can jointly design customer authorisation, task handovers and human collaboration. Tracking query resolution, task completion and customer experience separately helps identify which capabilities to extend next.

Regulation × AI

Policy requirements and supervisory perspectives

Shanghai | Putting AI approvals, reporting and outsourcing controls into practice

The Shanghai office of the National Financial Regulatory Administration issued 16 measures on AI applications. Generative AI used in public-facing services or high-risk scenarios must be reported to the office before launch. High-risk applications require an admission control process and approval by the institution’s risk management committee.

External compute, model and data-processing services should fall within IT outsourcing risk management. The document addresses relevant financial institutions in Shanghai. Institutions can use the original text and related provisions to incorporate scenario approvals, launch reporting and supplier management into their processes.

HKMA | Delegating to agents does not transfer management accountability

In his presentation at the HKIB Annual Banking Conference, Arthur Yuen distinguishes four AI roles: assist, recommend, decide and act. The material emphasises board and senior-management accountability for the full action pathway, including authorisation boundaries, approvals and escalation, traceability and challenge, and human intervention.

The first 2026 cohort of GenA.I. Sandbox++ lists 36 use cases, 30 financial institutions and 27 technology partners, extending exploration to end-to-end agentic workflows. This supervisory discussion material offers a framework for management accountability and agent governance that can inform authorisation and operating processes.

Fed’s Waller | Agent payments need new mechanisms for trust

In his Sibos speech, Waller distinguishes agent-assisted shopping from shopping and payment autonomously undertaken by an authorised agent. For the latter, he raises three central questions: how to prove payment authority, who bears responsibility for mistaken purchases, and how to adapt fraud detection built around human behaviour.

Speaking in a personal capacity, Waller raises questions for industry standards and infrastructure in a policy discussion on agent payments. Institutions can use these questions to identify design priorities for payment authority, responsibility and fraud detection as they explore the field.