What's standing between AI adoption and ROI in financial services?
UnlikelyAI Webinar
41:59
Three years into the generative AI era, our research across 1,000 senior leaders found only 22% are seeing real returns, so what is the other 78% still waiting on?
This webinar draws on the AI Trust Report 2026, surveying 1,000 senior leaders across Finance, Healthcare, Insurance, Energy and the Public Sector, to answer the question that has replaced "Are you using AI?": what would make you trust it enough to fully benefit from it?
Luke Vilain (Director at PwC, AI trust & governance expert, ex-UBS, ex-Accenture, ex-Lloyds Banking Group) and Paul Cumming (Associate Director, Audit Innovation, at Grant Thornton) join Dr. Ailish McLaughlin (Solutions Lead, UnlikelyAI) to explore why the real story isn't just AI adoption, it's what happens after. Where efficiency gains are being eaten by verification of AI, and what's standing between AI adoption and ROI in financial services?
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What we'll cover
The verification tax: when efficiency gains disappear into oversight
- How should organisations account for verification overhead when making the case for AI investment?
- At what point does human-in-the-loop become a liability rather than a safeguard?
- People focus heavily on the models themselves but what does trustworthy AI infrastructure actually require in practice?
- What would AI systems need to demonstrate, technically and in practice, before regulators and organisations would feel confident reducing human oversight?
Download The AI Trust Report 2026
1,000 senior leaders surveyed across Finance, Healthcare, Insurance, Energy and the Public Sector, the data that got picked up by CNBC, FT Adviser, BBC Tech Life and Pathfounder's Podcast, worth an in-depth conversation. Take a look at it before you join.
Can't make it? Register anyway and we'll send you the recording afterwards.
Speakers
Luke Vilain
Director | AI trust & governance
Director at PwC UK and an AI governance specialist with 25 years in financial services, focused on turning governance from a brake on AI into a practical way to scale it safely.
Drawing on senior in-house roles where he reshaped governance around AI use cases and systems, cut low-risk approvals from six months to two days, and helped banks prepare for new regulation, he now advises PwC clients on AI risk, controls and readiness.
Dr. Ailish McLaughlin
Solutions Lead
Solutions Lead at UnlikelyAI, helping enterprise clients in regulated industries utilise trustworthy, neurosymbolic AI to make accurate and explainable decisions.
She's passionate about equipping people with the knowledge needed to engage with AI confidently and in line with their values, whether that's with clients in regulated industries or through her podcast, Trust Issues. Ailish has a background in academia, entrepreneurship and experience as a Head of Product at an HR startup.
Paul Cumming
Associate Director - Audit Innovation
Associate Director - Assurance Innovation Lead at Grant Thornton Ireland. Paul Cumming brings experience from previous roles at Gilead Sciences, DePuy Synthes and EY.
What's standing between AI adoption and ROI in financial services?
41:59