The financial sector is leading the UK in the use of artificial intelligence, new research has revealed.

Nearly three-quarters (72%) of banks, insurance firms and other financial institutions use the technology – a 7% increase over the past 12 months and far higher than the national average of 56%.

According to the Microsoft report – entitled Accelerating Competitive Advantage with AI – organisations already using AI at scale are performing an average of 11.5% better than those who are not – up from 5% just one year ago.

Of the AI-driven technologies being adopted by the financial services sector, predictive analytics and systems that study and interpret data to help users learn more about their company are most widely-used (52%).

That’s followed by Robotic Process Automation (which is used for payroll processing and call centre operations among other things) on 44%, Automation (file generation and computer-aided manufacturing) at 43%, and Machine Learning (giving systems the ability to improve from experience) on 40%.

Automation also saw the biggest year-on-year rise, of 16 percentage points.

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