AI, Regulation and Data Rails: What Changed in 2025 and What’s Next

Each month Pete Gatenby, AI Practice Partner at Novus Strategy, shares a practical view on how AI is really evolving across UK home buying and mortgage lending - cutting through demos and hype to focus on what’s changing, and what lenders should be doing next.

Looking back across 2025 and ahead into 2026, one theme stands out: AI is moving out of experimentation and into maturity. The emphasis is no longer only on proofs of concept, but on building the foundations that allow AI to operate safely at scale - shared data, well-defined APIs, agent orchestration and robust evaluation.

This month’s bulletin covers four major shifts lenders need to know:

• AI is moving beyond demos and POCs into production

• The FCA is holding the line on existing regulation, anchored in consumer duty

• Transparency and explainability are non-negotiable as AI scales

What matters now for Lenders navigating AI in today's market:

• Strong data foundations and shared APIs

• Safe, well-governed agent deployments

• Horizontal Digital Integration (HDI) as the core enabler