Off the back of new FCA findings on customer due diligence, Martin and Kevin dig into the realities of identity and verification in an AI-led environment. They explore where rigid ID&V journeys create unintended customer stress particularly for vulnerable customers and how MEGA’s deployments at Sync Group, BPO Collection and UKSL are striking a balance between flexibility, financial-crime safeguards and a smooth customer experience.

The pair then unpack a question that comes up in nearly every conversation: why do so many AI projects fail to deliver? Their answer cuts through the hype most projects fail not because of the technology, but because the AI strategy never reaches the boardroom, the data foundations are weak, and the QA framework was never built for scale. The episode closes with a forward look at the FCA’s consumer understanding framework, the Mills Review, and the operational and cyber resilience surveys reshaping what ‘ready for AI’ actually means.

Topics covered 

• FCA findings on ID&V flexibility and vulnerable customers
• Continuous test-and-learn: treating bots like new joiners, not plug-and-play tools
• Consumer understanding frameworks and ‘friendly without being friends’
• Bot-versus-bot: what happens when consumers bring their own AI assistants
• Building a board-level AI strategy that is risk-led, not opportunity-led
• Modern QA frameworks for the era of scaled automation

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