Roundtable: Shaping the AI-First Future of Financial Services
Date: 23rd September 2025
Time: 4:30PM-7:00PM
Venue: South Place Hotel, London
SPEAKERS:
Event summary
Xpedition’s Financial Services event brought together industry leaders and innovators to explore how AI is transforming the sector. Hosted by Oli Hymas, Senior Business Manager, Xpedition, joined by Andrew Coan, Business Applications Specialist, Microsoft. The evening explored practical strategies for becoming an AI-first organisation and driving business excellence in financial services.
Oli opened the session, outlining Xpedition’s vision to become a frontier firm as part of our AI-first strategy and emphasising how technology is enabling operational agility across financial services. He highlighted the shift from viewing AI as a tool to truly embracing it as a foundational capability – transforming every aspect of the sector. Oli highlighted Copilot as “the UI for the AI,”, and discussed the mindset shift that’s now required for an AI-first future.
“AI is transforming every corner of FS from product innovation and onboarding to fraud detection and portfolio management.”
Oli Hymas, Senior Business Manager at Xpedition
Drew’s keynote highlighted how generative AI is driving both productivity and quality improvements in financial services. He described 2025 as the year of the “frontier firm,” where organisations combine human expertise with AI to tackle industry challenges like market volatility, talent retention, and regulatory compliance – a theme explored in our recent whitepaper on the hybrid workforce. Drew emphasised that AI is a supportive layer, empowering people and enhancing existing systems rather than replacing them.
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“AI isn’t here to take your job – it’s here to help you do your job better. The real frontier is about pairing human ingenuity with AI tools, creating organisations that are more resilient, innovative, and people-first.”
Drew Coan, Business Applications Specialist at Microsoft
Oli also presented Xpedition’s Copilot START engagement, designed to help organisations unlock the power of AI with Microsoft Copilot. Through a half-day workshop, businesses can discover how to stay ahead of the competition, enhance client outcomes, and drive growth, with tailored sessions, design thinking workshops, and a customised AI Blueprint delivered by a Senior Xpedition AI Specialist.
We wrapped up the evening with an engaging roundtable discussion, inviting attendees to share where they are on their AI journey, their motivations for exploring AI tools like Copilot and Agents, as well as the organisational challenges they face in driving efficiency.
The conversation surfaced valuable insights into the biggest blockers to AI adoption, from change management to regulatory concerns, and sparked ideas for overcoming these hurdles. Bringing the event to a close, we launched our exclusive whitepaper, Intelligent AI: The Future of Financial Services, providing attendees with practical guidance and inspiration for their own transformation journeys.