Barefoot Innovation Podcast

I’m excited to share today’s conversation with Saket Narayan of Amazon Web Services, because it goes straight to one of the biggest questions in financial regulation today: how can regulators keep pace with a financial system that is becoming faster, more digital, more data-driven, and now increasingly is transforming through AI?

Saket leads industry business development for AWS’s public sector work in Australia and New Zealand, and before joining AWS he spent more than a decade at a federal financial services regulator in Australia. That background gives him an invaluable perspective on both sides of the challenge — the urgent need for supervisors to modernize, and the major constraints that regulators face as they do it.

Saket and AIR’s Nick Cook co-authored one of our most-popular papers, called Beyond Pilots and Sandboxes, and that is the launching point for our discussion. The paper was selected as part of the Featured Research for DC Fintech Week 2025. In today’s episode, we talk about why so many regulators are now moving from experimentation into production of tech tools and solutions — using cloud, AI, machine learning, and modern data infrastructure to detect risk faster, reduce burden, and build the capabilities needed for continuous, proactive supervision.

A key theme of the episode is that this is not just a technology story. It is a culture story. Regulators are, by design, careful institutions. They need to protect the public, safeguard sensitive data, and avoid mistakes. But as Saket explains, cloud technology can sharply lower the risk of experimentation, which means that agencies can now try and pre-test ideas quickly, learn what works, and scale successful tools with confidence.

We also dig into the data challenge. Regulators hold enormous volumes of sensitive information, but much of it is still siloed, fragmented, or difficult to analyze at speed. Saket describes how modern cloud platforms can help supervisors build secure, scalable data foundations, collaborate safely across teams and institutions, and use AI responsibly — all while protecting privacy, security, sovereignty, and public trust.

Finally, we talk about generative AI and agentic AI. Saket says the era of perpetual AI pilots is over, and that regulators are already exploring practical use cases including supervisory dashboards, anomaly detection, document intake and triage, predictive supervision, policy simulation, fraud and scam prevention, and better stakeholder experiences.

For me, this conversation captures the historic inflection point we are in. We will not get the benefits we hope for from financial innovation, if regulators cannot keep pace with the change. The financial industry today needs great technology — and so do its regulators — not as a luxury, but as essential infrastructure for understanding and overseeing modern markets.

More for Our Listeners

Before we close, I want to flag a few things coming up at AIR.

On the podcast, we have terrific conversations ahead, including Yaya Fanusie of Aleo and Greg Ruppert of FINRA.

Our team is also out speaking at several events this summer and fall. Shelley Anderson will speak at the Centre of FinTech Annual Event at the University of East London on tokenized money and the future of finance and regulation, and later at a Perspectives on Financial Inclusion webinar focused on bringing the Handbook for Women’s Financial Inclusion Policy, published by Women’s World Banking, to life.

I’ll be speaking at the AWS Summit in Washington, D.C. on July 1, and in October, Nat Weber and I will both be at Money20/20 USA in Las Vegas.

As always, you can find all the details on AIR’s website, along with links to our latest papers, events, and podcast episodes.

Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please rate us on your favorite podcast platform and share it with peers in the financial ecosystem.

More on Saket Narayan

Saket is AWS’s Head of Finance and Regulation Industry for Australia, New Zealand & Oceania.

In this role, he works with CEOs, Founders and Senior Executives across financial services regulators, central banks, tax, revenue and other finance authorities and FinTechs and RegTechs on solving business problems with innovative technology solutions. Prior to joining AWS, Saket worked for one of Australia’s federal regulators, where he spent over 10 years in a variety of leadership roles within data, technology and regulatory business areas.

Saket has extensive experience of working with global regulators across Australia, US, UK, Canada, and Singapore on cross border data analytics, regtech and fintech initiatives.