But in 2025, the frontier is moving again with the rise of generative AI and intelligent agents. This is not just another wave of automation; it’s a fundamental shift in how value is created, delivered and governed. 

Today’s “Frontier Firms” show what the next era of AI-powered Fintech looks like. These organisations integrate human-AI collaboration to scale operations, improve efficiency and drive innovation. In doing so, they offer a blueprint for how Fintech companies can lead in an era where growth, compliance and differentiation are increasingly shaped by AI.  

On average, Frontier Firms are using AI across seven business functions, with over 70% leveraging AI in customer service, marketing, IT, product development and cybersecurity – and they report outcomes that are four times greater across key business areas than slow AI adopters.

Using the spectrum of AI agents  

A key tool for the Frontier Firm is the AI agent. Agents can automate and assist business processes, working alongside or on behalf of people or teams. They range from simple, rule-based tools to more sophisticated adaptive systems: 

• Retrieval agents: follow pre-defined rules. 
• Task agents: automate workflows and repetitive tasks. 
• Autonomous agents: operate independently within set objectives and constraints, updating plans and executing tasks.

As leaders deploy agents across this spectrum, they unlock higher levels of efficiency and intelligence in their operations.

How Frontier Fintechs are driving impact

Pioneering Fintechs showcase their impact in two key ways: by generating customer value and by accelerating internal growth.

Generating customer value 

Leading companies generate new value for customers by creating or embedding AI into their product offerings. For example, here’s how several Fintechs are using Microsoft Azure AI and intelligent agents to transform outcomes.

Automating financial operations

AutoRek’s ARIA agent addresses the “capacity gap” that many organisations face – the deficit between business demands and the maximum capacity of humans alone. In particular, ARIA helps reconcilers, managers and developers drive efficiencies in financial operations, automating complex reconciliation tasks.

Auquan has similarly released several purpose-built agents for finance professionals. Its autonomous agents can help eliminate up to 95% of manual effort, saving financial institutions 50,000+ hours and reducing costs by 50%.

Transforming regulatory intelligence

CUBE is a leader in AI-powered regulatory intelligence, using semantic AI, fine-tuned models and agents to transform regulatory analysis for the world’s largest banks. As a result, clients can complete regulatory tasks up to 90% faster. CUBE’s recent acquisitions of Kodex AI and Acin are further strengthening this capability. 

Improving wealth management and client onboarding

FNZ research recently found that 73% of wealth management clients expect more personalised services from their advisor in the next two years. Meeting this need is FNZ’s Advisor AI, an embedded generative AI tool that streamlines the entire client meeting process with personalised insights, automated transcription and analysis, and much more.

Grounding agents with contextual data

Quantexa provides a Decision Intelligence Platform that uses contextual data to help organisations deploy domain-specific agents for financial crime, compliance and customer intelligence. This approach helps solve two major AI challenges – data fragmentation and inconsistent context quality.

Meeting users where they are

Companies are also integrating AI and agents directly into the interfaces their customers already use. For example, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and Microsoft have successfully partnered to transform access to AI-ready financial data within Copilot Studio and Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat.

Accelerating growth from within

Frontier Fintechs are also reshaping their internal operations by applying AI to strengthen core business functions. In doing so, they accelerate the speed at which they can bring new innovation to market.

Software development

Pokyt, a Fintech startup, has doubled developer productivity using GitHub Copilot as an automated coding assistant. Pokyt can now generate utility classes and unit tests up to one hundred times faster, significantly cutting integration time and allowing developers to focus on more complex problems.

Additionally, coding has been an early AI success story. There are now multiple models to choose from in GitHub Copilot, including those from OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI. 

Operations and profitability

ClearBank uses Microsoft Azure AI to automatically interpret complex payment-scheme rules and swiftly validate or reject recovery claims. As a result, payment recovery processing times have been cut by around 80% and clients can now recover funds faster.

Customer service

The use of AI-powered agents has also revolutionised call centres, automating routine tasks, reducing wait times and freeing teams to focus on complex issues. Today’s chatbots are built to deliver fast, consistent and empathetic support across voice and text.  

Virgin Money’s award-winning Redi assistant, built with Microsoft Copilot Studio and Dynamics 365, now resolves over 50% of credit card queries through proactive, conversational AI. When Redi pushes out notifications about credit card replacement, it achieves a 97% journey completion rate.

PolyAI, a UK-based conversational AI company, is helping financial institutions achieve a 30% reduction in call volume with voice-first virtual assistants. Voice is an increasingly popular modality for engaging with AI, with Fintech CX ripe for transformation.

The road ahead: become a Frontier Firm 

The journey to becoming a Frontier Firm is underway. Every individual will work alongside AI designed for their role. Every team will include AI agents, managed by humans, that complete tasks autonomously. In addition, humans will increasingly set direction for AI agents to run entire teams or departments, checking in as needed.

For Fintech companies, this vision promises to amplify human ambition while unlocking new sources of value.  

Fintech Agentic Launchpad: an update

Applications for this year are now closed (deadline: 28 November 2025), but stay tuned for our upcoming blog. We’ll be revealing our new cohort and the innovative Fintech solutions they plan to develop.

Find out more

Read Microsoft’s Work Trend Index Annual Report, 2025: The year the Frontier Firm is born

Read the blog: Accelerating financial services transformation with AI

Explore the Microsoft Cloud for financial services

About the author

As Fintech partner lead for Microsoft UK, George helps B2B software companies innovate with Microsoft’s Cloud and AI platforms, and reach new customers together. He has more than 13 years’ experience working in the Microsoft Partner ecosystem, more recently helping Fintechs drive successful AI and agentic partnerships with Microsoft.

The post Extending the frontier of AI-powered Fintech  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Nowhere is this more evident than within the Lloyd’s Market, where Insurtech companies are redefining underwriting, claims and customer experiences through digital innovation.

Tackling operational efficiency and processing capacity for claims and other workflows remains a key focus for the industry, one that is well-suited to the advancements we’re seeing with today’s Large Language Models (LLMs) and agents.¹ 

With Microsoft’s cloud and AI technologies underpinning many of these Insurtech solutions, innovation is accelerating in three crucial areas:

• Transforming the policyholder experience
• Modernising risk and compliance
• Transforming core insurance systems

The result is that Insurtech innovators are boosting productivity, accelerating time to market and enhancing collaboration and engagement. 

As the industry adapts to new economic realities, regulatory pressures and customer expectations, Insurtech companies exemplify the innovative spirit that positions 2025 as a big year for digital transformation. A recent generative AI study² for the insurance market suggests that nine out of 10 insurers plan to invest in generative AI over the coming year in their bid to achieve more. 

Transforming risk placement and underwriting

Notwithstanding their unique respective operations, PPL and InsurX are both leaders in driving value-chain efficiency and modernising processes that support smooth risk placing and processing in the London Market. 

Enhancing collaboration 

PPL is advancing the London Market’s digital placing capability with a new trading hub built on Microsoft technologies. The move will speed the company’s transition from a document-led, administrative placing process to a a new e-trading and data hub built on Microsoft’s cloud and AI technologies.

The collaboration is set to enable: 

• Powerful and actionable broker and carrier insight delivered by bespoke PPL Copilot prompts. These will empower users to compare, analyse and gain insight in real time to inform next actions.   
• End-to-end trading data housed in an intelligent Microsoft Fabric-powered data hub. This will provide PPL clients with easy access to structured, secure and rich data to inform and support business decisions. 

These advancements create an agile digital marketplace that fosters collaboration and efficiency at the heart of the Lloyd’s Market. 

Revolutionising underwriting 

InsurX ’s mission is to modernise the complex $1.2 trillion commercial underwriting industry for the 21^st century. Part of the Lloyd’s Lab accelerator programme in 2022, the company has developed a two-sided digital exchange that allows brokers and insurers to algorithmically trade insurance risks. 

The live exchange now includes over 50 enterprise insurers and brokers, and is set to trade $1 billion in premiums by 2026. By leveraging Microsoft Azure, InsurX’s technology enables brokers and underwriters to:  

• Define risk appetite: underwriters can tailor algorithmic rules to their precise risk criteria.  
• Match risks to rules: brokers find capacity in minutes as the InsurX matching engine cross-references their submissions against rules. 
• Sign contracts automatically: InsurX then binds policies and delivers high-quality reporting to all parties. 

 Ultimately, InsurX seeks to streamline insurance risk-processing, making it faster, more efficient and more cost-effective for brokers and underwriters. 

Outwards reinsurance reinvented

Cenata is a pioneering business focused on outwards reinsurance and committed to driving change and improving operational outcomes at a global level. Cenata has developed a game-changing solution called CenataSure, an Azure-based outwards reinsurance management platform, which underpins and futureproofs its growing client base.

By leveraging Microsoft Azure data services, the CenataSure platform enables insurers to better manage reinsurance risks and compliance, and leverage opportunity across the London and international markets.  

The platform delivers powerful insight from extremely large insurance datasets, enabling business performance optimisation. With Azure CosmosDB and Synapse Analytics in play, Cenata can also scale exceptional performance for organisations of all sizes by enabling:   

• Granular insight: a real-time picture of reinsurance premium and claims position for proactive decision making, all to outstanding levels of detail. 
• Complex calculation automation: detailed automation at scale, delivering frictionless straight-through processing with no manual intervention. 
• Regulatory compliance: automating statutory reporting, such as QMA, SRS and schedule F reports, to streamline operations.  

Cenata partners with global services organisations such as Synpulse, a ceded insurance specialist, to deliver large-scale transformation projects – and at the core of each project is CenataSure.

Transforming the policyholder experience 

In the digital-first world, customers demand hyper-personalised experiences. Peppercorn AI, powered by Microsoft Azure, has emerged as a leader in delivering these tailored experiences for insurance customers through its specialist conversational AI platform, Pipr.  

By leveraging Azure’s Cognitive and Azure Open AI services, the Pipr platform can:  

• Provide instant, highly intuitive responses to customer inquiries through AI, powered by its digital conversational assistant. 
• Amend and update policy information within individual customer profiles in real-time. 
• Deliver highly personalised guidance based on customer needs and behaviours. 

PeppercornAI is also leveraging generative AI to improve risk selection for the insurance provider. While recognising possible quote manipulation, it also provides a better informed, personalised customer experience – a win-win strategy. 

The UK Insurtech sector remains strong 

The UK is currently home to the world’s second largest Insurtech cluster and has produced eight “unicorns” (companies valued at more than $1 billion). This is more than the rest of Europe combined.³  More widely, the sector makes a significant contribution of almost £5 billion to the UK economy (GDP) and supports 60,000 jobs across the UK. 

This impressive achievement positions Insurtech not only as a vital economic contributor but also as a global leader in innovation. By continuing to harness Microsoft AI and data-driven solutions, the sector is well-positioned to drive growth, create jobs and shape the future of insurance. 

For its part, Microsoft is committed to providing efficient tools and platforms to advance industry innovation and empower strong collaboration for both physical and digital interactions. 

Discover the power of partnership 

ISV Success, part of our Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Programme, will give you all the support and guidance you need on the Microsoft Cloud. You can also gain free Azure credits, developer tools, app consultations and much more.   

If you’re an Insurtech company looking for support with AI innovation and go-to-market, please reach out to our UK ISV team or find out more by visiting the Microsoft ISV Hub.

Footnotes

¹ Transform Insurance Industry Workflows Using Generative AI Models and Azure Services | Microsoft Community Hub 

² Your journey to a GenAI future: An insurer’s strategic path to success 

³ Insurtech UK Roadmap 2024 

Find out more

Join our ISV Success Programme

About the author

As the Insurtech partner lead for Microsoft UK, George helps Insurance B2B software companies innovate with Microsoft’s Cloud and AI platforms, and reach new customers together. He has more than 13 years’ experience working in the Microsoft Partner ecosystem, most recently helping Fintechs drive successful commercial partnerships with Microsoft.

The post 2025: the year of data and AI innovation in UK Insurtech  appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Fintechs are often cloud-native by design and therefore have agile architectures, making it easier for financial services organisations to leverage them and respond to changing market opportunities. In this blog, we’re going to uncover some of the top opportunities to drive innovation in the sector. Additionally, we’ll share practical ways to start building your future focussed strategy.

1.      Create differentiated customer experiences with data and AI

One of the things that we’ve seen in the last year is a rise in demand for digital experiences. Customers want – and expect – great experience no matter the platform they’re on. It is also key to long term growth and customer loyalty.

One Microsoft partner helping financial service providers to better connect with their small business customers is Codat, who provides seamless integration to the leading financial data platforms, so banks can expedite the loan application process. Codat are innovating with organisations like Virgin Money, Atom Bank. They are expanding through partnerships with Visa, Plaid and Dynamics 365. SMEs will play a key role in our economic recovery moving forward. For many, their survival will depend on their ability to access funding.

At Microsoft we believe that client experience can be fundamentally transformed through the power of AI, a belief shared by our fintech fintech partner Abaka. Using a financial intelligence platform, Abaka helps provide customers with the right products, at the right time, through the right channels. It’s all based around hyper-personalised nudges and next best action recommendations. As a result, engagement, retention, product conversion and upsell has increased. Institutions such as HSBC, Prudential, OTP Bank, NatWest, St James’s Place are all leveraging Abaka technology to deliver services to their retail and wealth customers.

2.      Modernise core banking systems through cloud-native technology

Many institutions are modernising core banking systems through partnerships with new cloud-based core providers. This shift is due to the public cloud’s enhanced agility and ability to handle a high volume of transactions. At the same time, a modern core helps drive more personalised experiences through enabling real time access to wide data sources.

Whether launching greenfield banks or modernising existing cores – there are some excellent UK fintech partners that are well-positioned to help the industry innovate. Two UK Microsoft partners driving this trend worldwide are Thought Machine and 10x Future Technologies. These both scale rapidly to meet the increased demand for cloud-native cores. Also, they help organisations shift away from the cycle of expensive legacy technology. According to McKinsey, 65 percent of banks are exploring next generation platforms like these.

3.      Deliver customer lifetime value with Banking as a Service

The opportunity isn’t just limited to the financial services industry. In fact, any organisation can start to build financial products into their offerings through embedded finance. Partnerships with Banking as a Service (BaaS) providers are key in enabling this. They have the platforms and regulatory frameworks to enable non-bank customers to provide services such as bank accounts, payments, credit cards and lending. ClearBank for example, are using their extensive experience to offer access to their BaaS platform, and help organisations like Tide to increase their range of UK SME offerings.

Additionally, there are fintechs like Omnio who are helping financial and non-financial institutions, such as retailers and airlines, to transform the way consumers receive financial services. Omnio has helped the likes of EasyJet and An Post to embed white label financial products into their digital offering, helping to position these brands in the financial lives of their customers.

4.      Manage risk and build customer trust with data and automation

The use of Open Banking rose in 2020, with  4.3 million payments made using the system, compared to 230,000 in 2019. Open Banking is key to fintech innovation as it allows third parties to access consumer financial data to develop new, customer-centric services. It also allows banks to build an ecosystem of digital offerings. Many UK fintechs focus on Open Banking and automation to help keep customers safe and are choosing to host on Microsoft Azure.

One example is Experian’s Open Data Platform, which gives organisations instant access to a customer’s financial information by using Experian’s comprehensive set of consumer and business credit services. Organisations can get a better picture of affordability, credit worthiness and financial wellbeing that is critical in protecting a financial institution and its customers. As well as managing risk, the platform also serves to build a more trusting relationship with consumers.

Trade finance for large corporate and financial institutions is another example of where risk can be managed through innovative fintech. Demica have a powerful, intuitive platform that interfaces with corporate ERP systems to enable automated financing and powers the working capital programmes of the world’s leading financial institutions. The platform currently enables the financing of over $18 billion of assets worldwide and helps to manage financial stress and liquidity more effectively for its users.

Finally, substantial risk can also stem from the manual handling of data. This is another key reason why automation is on the rise, enabling financial firms to better tackle hidden operational risk and perform more accurate reconciliation. Xceptor is one such specialist in this sector, providing an no-code platform to deliver end-to-end automation of complex processes. Xceptor’s automation customers include Citi, HSBC and US Bank.

Find out more

Microsoft AppSource – destination for business apps

Microsoft Azure Marketplace

Let’s shape the future of intelligent banking and capital markets together

Read more about intelligent banking 

About the author

George works in the Microsoft UK partnership team, building strategic relationships with industry leading software vendors across Banking, Insurance and Capital Markets. He is the fintech guy and helps shine a light on the great impact the B2B Fintech ecosystem has on the Microsoft business and with customers. He also has a keen interest in technology-led sustainability, supporting the UK partner community on the carbon benefits of cloud computing.

The post How UK fintechs can help build innovation and personalised customer experiences appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.