ECB is stress-testing banks’ exposure to the AI buildout (data centers, compute) — treat it like a new sector concentration review
The European Central Bank is asking lenders for detailed information on loans tied to AI-related areas such as data centers, and is running workshops on how banks should assess and manage AI-sector risk. The practical change is supervisory attention moving from “AI as model risk” to “AI as credit concentration and correlated infrastructure risk.”
Action: Inventory and segment exposure to AI infrastructure (data centers, power, chips, cooling, network) across C&I, CRE, project finance, and fund finance; then pre-wire concentration limits, stress scenarios (power pricing, permitting delays, demand whiplash), and covenant standards before supervisors force a rushed remediation.
Fed is deploying a general-purpose internal AI across core operations — a signal that “central-bank-grade” governance patterns are hardening
Fed Governor Christopher Waller said the Federal Reserve is embedding a new general-purpose AI into daily work spanning payments, financial management, HR, and services provided to the U.S. Treasury. This is a concrete shift from experimentation to operational deployment inside a systemically important public-sector institution with high auditability requirements.
Action: Mirror the Fed’s approach by standardizing an internal AI platform with clear controls (data access tiers, model risk management, logging, human-in-the-loop) and then expanding from low-risk functions (HR, finance ops) into payment and Treasury-adjacent workflows where process integrity and audit trails are non-negotiable.
TransferMate completed a global KYB rollout using Vivox AI agents — KYB is shifting from manual review to explainable automation
TransferMate says it has finished a full global rollout of Vivox AI’s “trusted, explainable” AI agents for Know Your Business (KYB) automation. This is notable because KYB is typically constrained by jurisdictional variation and audit expectations; a global deployment suggests the tooling and controls are maturing beyond pilots.
Action: Benchmark your KYB operating model against agent-assisted throughput and false-positive rates; then prioritize automation in the most repeatable KYB steps (entity resolution, document extraction, adverse media triage) while tightening evidence capture so decisions remain regulator-defensible.
Anthropic bought Vercept to accelerate “computer-use” agents — agents operating inside real apps are consolidating fast
Anthropic acquired Vercept, a startup focused on agentic tools including computer-use capabilities that can execute tasks inside applications like a human. This is a direct bet that the next adoption wave is agents that click/type through existing enterprise UIs, not just chat or API calls.
Action: Accelerate controls for UI-driving agents (privileged access management, step-level approvals, session recording, deterministic guardrails) before business teams pilot them ad hoc in high-risk systems like payments, customer service tooling, and case management.
OpenAI published fresh scam TTPs and disruptions — AI-enabled fraud is now “playbooked,” not theoretical
OpenAI’s February 2026 threat report details how malicious actors combine AI with websites and social platforms to run scams, and describes operations OpenAI disrupted (including one tied to Chinese law enforcement). The update is actionable because it enumerates tactics and workflows, not just generic warnings.
Action: Feed the described tactics into fraud ops and SOC use-cases (synthetic identity onboarding, social-engineered payment redirection, AI-assisted phishing at scale) and update training plus detection rules to look for AI-enabled volume/variation signatures rather than static templates.
Meta’s reported up-to-$100B AMD chip deal shows AI capacity is becoming a balance-sheet-level strategy decision
Meta is reportedly striking a multiyear AI chip deal with AMD that could run up to $100B, tied to a warrant structure, as it expands data center capacity and diversifies beyond Nvidia. This reinforces that frontier AI capability is being constrained by supply and power, pushing buyers into long-horizon, quasi-capital markets behavior.
Action: Lock in a multi-vendor compute strategy (reserved capacity, portability across clouds/on-prem, and model efficiency targets) and treat AI infrastructure dependencies like other critical third-party concentrations with board-level visibility and stress scenarios (supply shock, power constraints, vendor lock-in).