Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly shaping how organisations analyse information, make decisions and scale expertise, with large language models (LLMs) becoming a mainstream tool across many industries. For Oakley, AI presents a practical opportunity to improve productivity and consistency across core activities such as investment analysis, portfolio support and operational processes, while also introducing new risks that require clear governance and robust controls. As adoption accelerates across the market, Oakley’s focus is on enabling teams to use AI in a way that is effective, responsible and aligned with our obligations to investors and wider stakeholders.

Governance and oversight

In the second half of 2025, Oakley established an AI Committee, bringing together stakeholders from across the business, including the Investment, Origination, Portfolio, Operations, Investor Relations, Sustainability and Finance Transformation teams. The committee meets every six weeks and is intended to provide cross-functional oversight, align priorities and drive initiatives that benefit multiple teams, rather than creating isolated pockets of experimentation. It has also helped to identify shared challenges and opportunities across Oakley and create a more joined-up approach to addressing them.

Training and enablement

To support responsible adoption, Oakley launched a four-week training programme in 2025 to upskill colleagues on the effective use of LLMs. The programme began with introductory sessions covering core concepts, practical use cases and prompting best practices, before progressing to more tailored examples and demonstrations of how LLMs can be applied within day-to-day tools such as Excel. Sessions were well attended and helped build a common baseline of understanding across teams, supporting more consistent and confident use of AI in daily workflows.

Tools and guardrails

Like many organisations, Oakley has started adopting LLMs in everyday workflows. Oakley has rolled out organisation-wide access to enterprise versions of established LLM tools and is now exploring integration with other systems and the design of end-to-end workflows that go beyond standalone chat functionality. Alongside this, Oakley applies strict guardrails to minimise risk and ensure that the use of AI remains appropriate and controlled.

Given the pace of change in this field, Oakley is also designing workflows with flexibility in mind, aiming to ensure that different LLM providers can be substituted where appropriate. This approach helps maintain resilience as capabilities evolve and supports continued alignment with Oakley’s governance standards and risk appetite.