FRC says AI adoption in UK corporate reporting is not yet uniform, raising governance and accountability questions for listed companies and their advisers

The Financial Reporting Council (FRC), the UK body responsible for setting corporate reporting and auditing standards, has published findings indicating that AI adoption in corporate reporting is not yet uniform across UK listed companies. The FRC's assessment identifies an uneven landscape in which some companies are using AI tools in the preparation and review of corporate reports, while others have not yet incorporated AI into their reporting processes. The findings come in the same week that the FCA's Mills Review was published, which examines how AI may reshape retail financial services for consumers, firms, markets, and regulators by 2030. The Mills Review found that one in five consumers would already be willing to use agentic AI (AI systems capable of taking autonomous actions on a user's behalf) for financial decisions, and it calls on the FCA to build on existing principles including Consumer Duty, accountability, and governance frameworks rather than creating an entirely new AI rulebook. Industry commentary from Capco, a management and technology consultancy, describes the Mills Review as marking an important shift in FCA thinking, noting that the regulator now clearly recognises AI as becoming part of the financial system itself, rather than merely a tool that firms adopt. Together, the FRC and FCA outputs signal a coordinated regulatory expectation that AI governance in financial services and corporate reporting must be embedded at the design stage, with accountability frameworks keeping pace as AI systems become more autonomous.