The Behaviour Gap: Why Agentic AI Changes The Foundations Of Financial Regulation

As agentic AI systems become more capable of making decisions independently, regulators are facing new challenges around accountability and oversight. 

In this article for Finextra, Carey Olsen Bermuda partner Steven Rees Davies and counsel Matthew Perriment examine what the emergence of agentic AI means for financial regulation, and consider how digital identity and distributed ledger technology could play a role in verifying the actions of autonomous systems. 

An original version of this article was first published in the long-read section of Finextra's regulation channel, September 2026.

For as long as there has been law, its subject has been human conduct. Legal systems differ enormously in structure and philosophy, but they share a working premise: that people, companies, and markets respond to consequences. Criminal law deters through the prospect of punishment, civil law allocates loss, while regulation guides commercial activity through permissions, restrictions,