The joint statement on frontier AI models and cyber resilience was published on 15 May 2026 by the Financial Conduct Authority, the Bank of England and HM Treasury, and appears in identical text on the FCA's and the Bank's own domains. It is addressed to regulated firms and financial market infrastructures, and sets out what the three authorities judge firms should be doing about the cybersecurity risks posed by frontier AI models.
The instrument's own status is stated in a footnote: "This note is not intended to introduce new expectations; it brings together and reinforces existing messages to support firms as the operating environment becomes more complex." It therefore sits between guidance and supervisory communication rather than carrying rule-making force, while resting on the FCA's existing operational-resilience rules in PS21/3.
The capability claim
The statement's premise is that "[f]rontier AI models represent a step-change in capability, with significant implications for cyber security and operational resilience," and that "[t]he cyber capabilities of current frontier AI models are already exceeding what a skilled practitioner could achieve, and at a significantly higher speed, greater scale, and lower cost." The authorities attribute the capability claim by hyperlink to the AI Security Institute rather than restating its evidence. They state that these capabilities amplify cyber threats to firms' safety and soundness, to customers, to market integrity and to financial stability if used maliciously, that the risks are expected to increase as more advanced models become available, and that firms which have underinvested in core cyber security fundamentals "are likely to become progressively more exposed." See AI and Cybersecurity, Autonomous cyber-agents, Frontier Models.
The five domains
| Domain | What the statement asks of firms |
|---|---|
| Governance and strategy | Boards and senior management should understand frontier AI risks well enough to set strategic direction and oversee control functions; investment and resourcing decisions should reflect the emerging threat, including exposure from end-of-life or out-of-support systems; firms should consider whether their insurance is appropriate |
| Identification and risk management of vulnerabilities | Firms should triage, prioritise, risk-assess and remediate vulnerabilities more quickly, more frequently and at scale, including through automation where appropriate, while mitigating the operational risks of doing so |
| Managing risks from third parties | Firms should be able to identify, monitor and manage external applications, libraries and services integrated into their networks, including open-source software, and be prepared to remediate third-party-identified vulnerabilities at scale |
| Protection | Access management, network security and data protection should reduce the attack surface a frontier model might reach; firms should consider adopting automated and AI-enabled defences operating at comparable speed to AI-driven attacks |
| Response and recovery | Firms should be able to respond to and recover from disruption quickly, and should read the effective practices on cyber response and recovery published by the Bank, the PRA and the FCA in October 2025 |
The statement's framing of what firms need is protective, detective, threat-containment and cyber-response capability sufficient to address "faster and more disruptive frontier AI-driven attacks."
Channels and further material
The authorities state that they will continue to monitor frontier AI developments and engage with industry through the Cross Market Operational Resilience Group (CMORG), and point firms to CMORG's Frontier AI Risk Mitigation Webinar of 14 May 2026 and to National Cyber Security Centre guidance, naming its material on preparing for a "vulnerability patch wave," on why cyber defenders need to be ready for frontier AI, and its vulnerability-management collection including ten questions to ask when using AI models to find vulnerabilities.
Relation to later UK material
The statement is the instrument the FCA's August 2026 multi-firm review builds on and cites, restating its "step-change in capability" language (Frontier AI and cyber resilience (FCA multi-firm review, August 2026)). The two differ in kind: the joint statement is a tri-authority expectation-setting communication addressed to the whole regulated sector, while the review reports what firms told the FCA during an engagement exercise and likewise disclaims new rules or expectations. The Governor of the Bank of England's letter of 9 July 2026 to Dame Meg Hillier, Chair of the Treasury Committee, records the May statement and lists the same domains; that letter is not held.
Provenance
The vault holds the complete statement text, captured from the FCA's own domain and checked sentence for sentence against the Bank of England's copy, which differs only in typography and in rendering the footnote as a numbered link. Three instruments named around the statement are not held: the Governor's 9 July 2026 letter to the Treasury Committee; the European Systemic Risk Board's Warning of 25 June 2026 on systemic cyber risks stemming from frontier artificial intelligence models (ESRB/2026/3); and CMORG's "Firm Guidance For Frontier AI" of June 2026.
Relationships
- supports: Frontier AI and cyber resilience (FCA multi-firm review, August 2026)
- related: Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)
- related: Bank of England (BoE)
- deployed-by: Financial Services — AI Deployment
- depends-on: AI and Cybersecurity
- related: Autonomous cyber-agents
- related: UK AI Safety Institute (AI Security Institute)