OpenAI flagged a sharp jump in demand from insurers and financial firms as generative models shift from experiments to core infrastructure.
Insurers and banks now wire AI into fraud checks, claims flows, customer support and risk analytics, treating it less like a side project and more like the operating system that keeps the business moving.
According to FF News, European teams, already deep into production rollouts, report measurable gains that aren’t theoretical anymore.
The customer roster spans Revolut, Allica Bank, Hg, EQT and Permira, and fresh data from Zopa and OakNorth shows how quickly usage spreads once the tools slot into daily work.
Matt Weaver, who leads solutions engineering for OpenAI in EMEA, said regulated sectors aren’t dragging their feet. He argued that firms with the right governance and infrastructure often move faster than tech-first players, which flips the usual narrative on its head.
AI has moved from pilots to production, and we’re seeing that regulated industries aren’t lagging behind – they’re leading the way.
Matt Weaver, OpenAI EMEA solutions engineering lead
“Financial firms are showing how highly-regulated companies can succeed with the right governance, strategy, platforms and support in place,” Matt Weaver said.
OpenAI says Europe has become a proving ground for sophisticated deployments, with firms like Revolut, BBVA and NatWest scaling models into sensitive, highly regulated environments.
In insurance, generative AI speeds claims, trims fraud losses and nudges carriers toward more personalised coverage decisions.
The early movers already see a competitive edge, though the gap may widen as models improve.
- Revolut pushes GPT-5 into its platform to tighten financial crime controls and upgrade its assistant, Rita, which still leans on a fine-tuned GPT-4.1.
- Allica Bank uses AI to absorb first-pass lending assessments and surface insight for support teams, shaving about 20 minutes off each case.
- OakNorth runs almost its entire operation on OpenAI tooling: roughly 90% of staff use 360+ custom GPTs for HR, compliance, legal and asset management tasks, saving tens of thousands of hours each year.
- Zopa runs AI across 40,000 monthly customer interactions to spot vulnerability and tests an AI banking assistant with 200,000 users.
- Permira uses ChatGPT Enterprise for investment analysis, risk review and operational chores and expects about $450mn in AI-driven revenue across its portfolio.
CTO Lionel Hill says 90% of staff use AI now, up 4x in a year, and teams spin up new tools in hours rather than weeks.
EQT followed a similar trajectory. Roughly 90% of its 2,000 employees use ChatGPT weekly, reporting about 45 minutes saved per day thanks to more than 350 internal GPTs.
Those tools accelerate analysis, sharpen decision-making and sit inside a governance framework built to keep regulators calm.
