Fraud detection, anti-money laundering, and customer engagement have dominated early AI adoption in financial services – and for good reason. These are well-established, high-impact applications that deliver clear value and meet urgent regulatory and operational needs.
But the firms looking to stay ahead aren’t stopping there.
According to the Bank of England’s Artificial Intelligence in UK Financial Services 2024 report, operational efficiency and productivity are set to become the most transformative AI use cases over the next three years. This marks a shift from AI as a reactive tool to AI as a strategic asset – one that can streamline internal processes, reduce manual effort, and unlock meaningful gains in scale and speed.
It’s a trend we’re seeing first-hand, as more financial services firms look to harness AI not just for innovation’s sake, but to improve how their business runs day to day. The potential for competitive advantage is clear – and tools that make those gains accessible at scale are already emerging.
“The areas with the largest expected increase in benefits over the next three years are operational efficiency, productivity, and cost base.”
— BoE, AI in Financial Services 2024
M365 Copilot: the practical route to AI gains at scale
So how do you turn the promise of AI-driven productivity into real business results?
For many financial services firms, the answer is already sitting inside their Microsoft 365 environment: Copilot.
Integrated across tools like Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams, and Power Platform, Copilot is designed to help employees do more with less – drafting reports, summarising meetings, analysing data, and automating everyday tasks. It’s a direct line to the operational efficiency gains the Bank of England has identified as AI’s next major frontier.
And unlike custom-built models or high-cost data science projects, Copilot is accessible, familiar, and built to scale. For firms looking to boost internal productivity without reinventing core systems or adding headcount, it’s a powerful proposition.
But like any powerful tool, its effectiveness depends on the environment in which it operates.
Because Copilot doesn’t just generate content – it draws from the data across your tenant to do it. If that data isn’t well governed, well protected, and properly classified, the risk of exposing sensitive or regulated information grows fast. That’s why the firms seeing real success with Copilot aren’t just rolling it out – they’re preparing for it properly.
“41% of respondents are using AI to optimise internal processes.”
— BoE, AI in Financial Services 2024
The data governance barrier to entry
M365 Copilot is built to accelerate productivity, but its power depends entirely on the data it can access.
And that’s where the real challenge lies.
Of all the barriers to successful Copilot deployment, the one we see most often is a lack of data control. Not a lack of data itself (most organisations are drowning in it), but a lack of clarity over what that data is, where it lives, who can access it, and whether it should be surfaced by AI at all.
The Bank of England’s report reinforces this: four of the top five risks firms associate with AI relate directly to data – from privacy and protection to quality and security. That tracks with what we’re seeing on the ground. Whether it’s Copilot surfacing sensitive client files, or employees unknowingly exposing regulated data in prompts, the risks are real – and regulators are paying close attention.
Without strong data controls, Copilot can’t be safely or effectively deployed. And that’s why many financial services firms find themselves stuck: the business wants the AI-driven gains, but the data estate isn’t ready to support them.
“Four of the top five perceived current risks are related to data: data privacy and protection, data quality, data security, and data bias and representativeness.”
— BoE, AI in Financial Services 2024
“The largest perceived regulatory constraint to the use of AI is data protection and privacy.”
— BoE, AI in Financial Services 2024
Laying the right foundations for Copilot success
If you’re not ready to deploy M365 Copilot today, you’re not alone. For many firms, the best first step is gaining clarity.
Our Copilot Maturity Assessment is a focused, four-week engagement designed to give financial services organisations a clear, practical roadmap towards Copilot adoption. It brings together our multi-disciplinary team of governance, risk, compliance, IT, and cybersecurity specialists to assess your current state and identify what’s needed to move forward with confidence.
Using Microsoft best practices and our own tried-and-tested eight-step framework, we help you align AI adoption with your business goals – without introducing unnecessary risk.
By the end of the assessment, you’ll have:
- A robust business case for secure Copilot deployment
- A detailed readiness report with tailored recommendations and scoped remediation activities
- A prioritised roadmap covering content optimisation, data security, and governance improvements
Once that roadmap is in place, we can also help you put it into action – from shaping policies and controls using Microsoft Purview, to supporting end-to-end deployment, stakeholder engagement, and ongoing optimisation. Our team works alongside yours to ensure secure, scalable Copilot success, grounded in strong, sustainable data governance.
Book a Copilot Maturity Assessment with Cloud Essentials and take the first step towards unlocking AI value – safely and strategically.