SIO and Leaman Crellin host AI Frameworks Roundtable in Edinburgh
On 20 May, SIO partnered with Leaman Crellin and ISITC Europe to bring together investment operations leaders at Franklin Templeton's Edinburgh office for a working session on deploying AI safely and effectively. The Chatham House-style discussion explored how firms can move from pilot projects to live production with confidence, clear accountability and auditable evidence.
Attendees positioned themselves on an AI maturity curve, with most firms still in the early stages of adoption and only two reporting more advanced, technology-led deployment. The clearest theme to emerge was a gap between senior management's appetite for AI-driven efficiency and the governance infrastructure needed to support it safely — alongside a shared view that AI governance should enable innovation, not block it.
The session covered roles and accountability, risk inventory and classification, due diligence, and ongoing governance, drawing on FCA expectations under Consumer Duty and operational resilience requirements. The group agreed on the need for a practical, proportionate toolkit covering ownership, risk classification, deployment readiness and monitoring.
The toolkit has been distributed to Members in June. If you are a Member and would like to see a copy, you can contact us here.
Artificial Intelligence and Operations
For some of our more seasoned (dare I say, cynical?) individuals in our community, Artificial Intelligence or AI, as it is more commonly known, represents yet another shiny pebble in a long succession of new technologies or philosophies, many of which have failed to make much of a dent in our operational capability. So what makes this different?
Here at SIO, we know this is a game-changer. Historically, our automation capabilities were limited to fixed data but this left variable data challenges like email and the ever-growing tail of bifurcated processes that were expensive to renovate.
Now, thanks to Natural/Large Language models and other intelligent automation technologies, we can tackle the challenges that represent the majority of how we spend our time. The only challenge is how fast we move to adopt these opportunities. It is important to take advantage of these capabilities but not at the expense of compromising risk and delivery to our customers.
SIO is focused on developing best-practice frameworks that outline the pathways to adopting new technologies that employ interpretative approaches. These are also important in the context of evolving regulation in this space. The EU AI Act is the most prominent piece of legislation and will likely inform the FCA when it formalises its own regulations in the coming months.
To start us off, we have partnered with ISITC Europe to create a podcast entitled AI, Bots & Brains with valuable insights from Sean McGarvey from Morgan Stanley and Anand K Mahendra from centrallis. We hope you enjoyit!
Watch this space for more content and events in the coming months. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about the EU AI Act, then try this interactive course as a taster.
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Working in an operational environment, you understand the challenges faced are distinct from those encountered by colleagues in other areas of the business. This distinction is what separates us. This is why we are a breed apart.
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