⚠️ WeWork’s Ghost Haunts AI: Why Financial Services Can’t Afford Another Sector Mistake

In 2019, a $47bn company was exposed not as a technology business, but as a real-estate firm priced like one. Once that sector mismatch became clear, its valuation collapsed (Link to Article- https://lnkd.in/eijzu9NR).

I’m seeing early signs of a similar mistake emerging around AI in financial services.

Boards are being asked to value AI like consumer tech—fast, lightly governed, engagement-driven—while deploying it inside balance-sheet businesses built on regulation, fiduciary duty, and trust.

That mismatch is #dangerous.

In banking, insurance, and asset management, value is created through risk management, auditability, accountability, and defensible outcomes—not unchecked autonomy.

📌 Three AI Illusions I See Repeating

❌ The “Finished Product” Illusion

Treating foundation models as off-the-shelf solutions. Models like ChatGPT are raw engines built for general interaction, not regulated financial reasoning. The real value lies in shaping them into sector-specific systems.

❌ The “Autonomous Value” Illusion

Equating Agentic AI with removing humans. In reality, agents should follow approved, auditable flows, process data at speed, and escalate material decisions to accountable humans. The goal is governed augmentation, not artificial independence.

❌ The “Tech-Led Transformation” Illusion

Treating AI as a CIO project. If your Chief Risk Officer cannot clearly explain your AI operating model to regulators, you don’t have an AI strategy—you have an IT experiment.

💡 A Sector-Correct Way Forward

🧠 From foundation models to financial models

Your strategic asset is not the LLM licence, but the financial domain layer—curated, tested, and aligned to products, regulations, and risk models.

🤖 Agentic AI as governed execution

Agents should operate as controlled execution engines, logging actions, enforcing thresholds, and routing high-impact cases to humans.

🛡 Governance as a feature, not overhead

Explainability, audit trails, model risk management, and control of agent actions are core capabilities. The ability to slow systems down and defend outcomes is a competitive advantage.

The winners won’t be the firms with the most chatbots.

They’ll be the ones that architect trustworthy intelligence—systems they can govern, explain, and defend.

AI priced like consumer tech but deployed like regulated infrastructure is the next WeWork moment waiting to happen.

💬 Where are you seeing consumer-AI logic being applied to regulated finance problems?