The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) is calling on firms building serious AI solutions for UK financial services to apply for Cohort 2 of its Supercharged Sandbox.
The Supercharged Sandbox provides firms with a secure, controlled environment to experiment with advanced AI technologies.
For the second cohort, the FCA said it is particularly interested in applications that demonstrate the use of agentic AI, such as agentic payment services, compliance agents and customer interaction or service agents.
Successful firms will operate within a secure cloud environment, with access to graphics processing unit (GPU)-enabled infrastructure, high-quality datasets and expert support, helping them to develop and test their AI solutions rapidly.
The programme is designed to help firms develop and test innovative AI-driven solutions, build evidence and understanding through experimentation and to overall accelerate their journey from concept to deployment.
The assessment criteria outlined on the website identified five key areas on which the applications will be judged: relevance and strategic fit, degree of innovation, feasibility and readiness, potential impact and need for support.
Applications close on 1 June 2026.
Cohort 1 of the Supercharged Sandbox ran from September 2025 to January 2026.
132 firms applied to join, with 22 successful applications that went on to use the Sandbox to develop, test and refine AI-enabled propositions in a structured environment.
The FCA also recently published new guidelines for asset managers on using distributed ledger technology (DLT) within the regulator’s existing rules, setting out how fund tokenisation could develop over time as part of the FCA’s roadmap for digital assets.
