Consumer Duty and marketing content: what compliance teams need to know in 2026

The FCA's Consumer Duty, which came into force in July 2023, represents the most significant shift in how regulated firms must approach their marketing communications in a generation. For compliance teams, the implications are substantial — and the consequences of getting it wrong are serious.

At its core, Consumer Duty requires firms to demonstrate that their marketing content delivers good outcomes for retail customers. This is a higher bar than the previous "fair, clear and not misleading" standard. It requires firms to actively consider whether their communications help customers make informed decisions, not just avoid actively misleading them.

The practical implications for marketing content are significant. Performance claims must be contextualised with appropriate risk warnings. Product complexity must be communicated in a way that is genuinely accessible to the target audience. And firms must be able to demonstrate, through their compliance processes, that they have considered customer outcomes at every stage of content production.

For compliance teams, this means that the traditional approach of reviewing content against a checklist of prohibited phrases is no longer sufficient. Consumer Duty requires a more holistic assessment of whether content, taken as a whole, is likely to lead to good customer outcomes.

AI-assisted compliance review can play a significant role here. By analysing content against the full context of Consumer Duty requirements — not just individual rule triggers — AI review tools can identify issues that a checklist-based approach would miss. But human judgement remains essential for the final assessment of whether content meets the Consumer Duty standard.

The key practical steps for compliance teams are: first, ensure your regulation packs are updated to reflect Consumer Duty requirements; second, review your content approval workflows to ensure they include explicit consideration of customer outcomes; and third, maintain clear audit trails that demonstrate your Consumer Duty assessment process.