FINRA CIO Strives for Effectiveness Over Efficiency in AI Usage
InformationWeek, Thursday, October 29th, 2026
FINRA CIO Steve Randich says AI should deliver effectiveness, such as better market surveillance, not just efficiency and job cuts.
Speaking at Bloomberg's AI in Finance Summit in New York, FINRA CIO Steve Randich said AI should deliver more than workforce reductions, with the goal being effectiveness rather than efficiency alone.
FINRA has used AI for about 10 years, mainly for market surveillance with open source machine learning tools, and also uses it to screen advertising videos for fraud and summarize consumer complaints.
FINRA built its own model governance and wants to check firms' models for data quality, timely updates and accurate outputs, while keeping its regulation technology-neutral.
Panelists from Goldman Sachs and Balyasny Asset Management described AI as augmenting human judgment.