Test and Learn in Regulated Industries: Overcoming Barriers to Innovation

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, the ability to innovate quickly is a defining trait of market leaders. Yet, for organizations in regulated industries—such as financial services, healthcare, and energy—the path to innovation is often obstructed by a complex web of compliance, security, and risk management requirements. The challenge is clear: how can these organizations operationalize agile, test-and-learn approaches without compromising regulatory obligations or exposing themselves to undue risk?

At Publicis Sapient, we have partnered with some of the world’s most regulated enterprises to embed experimentation into their DNA—safely, effectively, and at scale. Here, we explore actionable strategies for balancing innovation with compliance, highlight real-world examples, and offer a roadmap for embedding test and learn into highly controlled environments.

The Innovation Imperative in Regulated Sectors

Regulated industries face unique pressures. The pace of technological change and shifting customer expectations demand that organizations move from idea to market faster than ever before. However, traditional risk-averse cultures, legacy systems, and stringent oversight can slow progress to a crawl. The result? A widening gap between digital natives—who thrive on rapid experimentation—and established players, who risk being left behind.

Yet, the need for speed is undeniable. As one senior technology leader at a major European bank put it, “Nowadays, we’re more about progress than we are about perfection. We’re responding to customers more rapidly and learning more about them in the process.”

Operationalizing Test and Learn: A Maturity Journey

Test and learn is not a one-off initiative; it’s a continuous, organization-wide capability. For regulated industries, the journey typically evolves through four stages:

Ad Hoc Experimentation: Initial pilots or proofs of concept, often lacking clear ownership or process rigor. Experiments may be simple A/B tests with limited statistical validity.
Nascent Practice: Defined roles and processes emerge, with lean teams and manual oversight. Experiments are informed by user experience research and evaluated for statistical significance.
High-Performance Integration: Testing and optimization become embedded in decision-making. Business stakeholders are integrated into experimentation teams, customer feedback loops are continuous, and automation supports rapid, autonomous decisions.
Scaled, Innovative Culture: A Center of Excellence coordinates cross-functional pods, best practices are shared, and executive support ensures experimentation is woven into the fabric of the organization.

Overcoming Regulatory Barriers: Strategies for Success

1. Embed Compliance into Experimentation Design

Rather than viewing compliance as a barrier, make it a foundational element of your test-and-learn process. Involve compliance, risk, and legal teams early in experiment design. By co-creating guardrails and approval workflows, organizations can accelerate safe experimentation without last-minute roadblocks.

2. Leverage Data Responsibly

First-party data is a powerful asset, but its use must be governed by privacy and security standards. Regulated organizations should focus on collecting only the data necessary for each experiment, ensuring robust consent management and data minimization. Modern test-and-learn platforms can automate segmentation and anonymization, reducing risk while enabling actionable insights.

3. Start Small, Scale Fast

Begin with a small set of high-impact use cases that are easy to measure and unlikely to trigger compliance concerns. Demonstrate value quickly, then expand experimentation to more complex or sensitive areas as confidence and capabilities grow. This incremental approach builds trust with stakeholders and regulators alike.

4. Automate and Document

Automation platforms can streamline experiment setup, execution, and reporting—ensuring consistency, auditability, and rapid learning cycles. Automated performance measurement and documentation also make it easier to demonstrate compliance and respond to regulatory inquiries.

5. Foster a Culture of Collaboration and Accountability

Break down silos by embedding cross-functional teams—including compliance, IT, and business stakeholders—into the experimentation process. Clear ownership, shared metrics, and transparent communication are essential for sustaining momentum and ensuring that innovation aligns with regulatory expectations.

Real-World Impact: Test and Learn in Action

Retail Banking: By integrating ongoing customer insight into the design and delivery process, a retail bank created a customer-centric practice that enriched product development from discovery through beta release and beyond.
U.S. Bank Mobile App: Continuous testing and rapid iteration enabled teams to challenge assumptions, test features with real customers, and deliver a best-in-class mobile banking experience—all while maintaining compliance with industry standards.
Digital Trade Finance: For a fully digital trade finance bank, an agile approach and adaptive technology architecture allowed for rapid releases and ongoing improvements, meeting both customer needs and regulatory requirements.

A Roadmap for Regulated Innovators

Identify and Prioritize Use Cases: Focus on business-critical areas where experimentation can deliver measurable value and is feasible within regulatory constraints.
Collect and Govern Data: Use existing data platforms or customer data platforms (CDPs) to gather and enrich data, ensuring compliance with privacy and security standards.
Set Up Analytics and Segmentation: Develop robust analytics environments to segment audiences and generate actionable insights, while maintaining data integrity and auditability.
Design and Execute Experiments: Combine business knowledge with data to generate hypotheses, design experiments, and automate test execution and reporting.
Scale and Institutionalize: Convert successful experiments into broader campaigns or product features, and build a repository of learnings to inform future innovation.

The Path Forward

Test and learn is not just a methodology—it’s a mindset. For regulated industries, the key to unlocking innovation lies in operationalizing experimentation within the boundaries of compliance and risk management. By embedding compliance into the process, leveraging automation, and fostering a culture of collaboration, organizations can move from cautious pilots to enterprise-wide innovation.

At Publicis Sapient, we believe that regulated industries can—and must—be both safe and bold. With the right strategies, tools, and partners, the barriers to innovation become stepping stones to sustainable growth and competitive advantage.

Ready to accelerate your innovation journey? We’re here to help you operationalize test and learn—safely, effectively, and at scale.