At the Canada Fintech Forum on Tuesday, banking and tech leaders said Canadian banks are racing to adopt artificial intelligence for millions of customers but face hurdles, with financial institutions yet to weave AI through a majority of their systems even as the industry leads in machine learning adoption. Michael Pelosi, Canada country manager at Toronto-based AI company Cohere, called it a “misconception” that an AI model working in a controlled test environment can do likewise for millions of clients, citing cost as a particular challenge. More than 30% of finance and insurance firms were using AI last year, according to a Statistics Canada analysis, far above hospitality and food services at 1.5%, yet banking apps remain roughly the same as four years ago. Stephanie Hazlewood, a senior director at RBC, said security concerns and the cost of deploying machine-learning models on a massive scale have deterred broader uptake, while rapid adoption at the Big Five and beyond makes safety and accountability crucial, since care of data is expensive. Pelosi pointed to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei’s appeal over the weekend to “slow down” and impose greater checks on the industry.