On the sidelines of the Point Zero Forum in Zurich, Switzerland—one of the world’s premier gatherings of policymakers, central bankers, and financial innovators—the Bretton Woods Committee (BWC) hosted a discussion on tokenization, AI, and future of finance, while launching its latest AI paper, Generative AI in Risk Management and Compliance.

Authored by Co-Chairs of BWC’s Artificial Intelligence Working Group, Sarah Hammer and William C. Dudley, the paper examines how generative AI can be leveraged to strengthen risk management and compliance functions across the financial sector.

Main Takeaways from the paper:

• Generative AI offers financial institutions a high-value, low-risk opportunity in risk management and compliance by supporting internal analysis, documentation, and decision-making under human oversight, without directly interacting with clients or executing transactions.
• AI deployment in high-impact functions such as anti-money laundering, fraud detection, cybercrime, and regulatory compliance should be prioritized, given the large volumes of unstructured data that require analysis.
• Generative AI can be used as a decision-support tool to reduce manual work while keeping humans responsible for review and final decisions. Successful adoption depends on training staff to critically evaluate AI outputs, recognize its limitations, and integrate it into controlled decision-making workflows.

To support the launch of this publication, co-author Sarah Hammer joined Emily Slater on an episode of the Macro Matters podcast recorded live during the Point Zero Forum. Their conversation explored how AI is reshaping financial institutions and what responsible adoption means for the future of the financial system.

BWC continues to focus on how AI and digital technologies can responsibly shape the international financial system. Nowhere is this more visible than in Asia, which has emerged as not only a leading source of innovation in AI and digital finance infrastructure, but also as a model for the regional cooperation needed to support it. From Singapore’s frameworks for responsible AI adoption in financial services to cross-border initiatives like Project Nexus linking payments systems, Asia is showing how governments, regulators, and the private sector can coordinate to scale digital finance responsibly rather than in silos.

BWC is excited to participate in conversations at the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings in Bangkok this October, where we’ll look to learn from Asia’s approach to regional cooperation on digital finance and AI. These discussions will no doubt continue to inform BWC’s work on AI governance and responsible adoption across the global financial system.

By Visar Xhambazi and Marina Zaldarriaga with contributions from the Bretton Woods Committee team.