About half of proprietary trading firms let employees use artificial intelligence relatively freely, a survey by Acuiti published today (Tuesday) shows. A third have no formal AI governance policy, while every bank in the sample controls how its staff use the technology.The gap sits inside a market that is already booking gains. Across the Acuiti Derivatives Expert Network, 44% of firms reported significant, quantifiable time and cost savings from AI, and another 42% said they had seen benefits they have not yet measured.London's trading industry is coming home!The quarterly report merges Acuiti's separate buy-side, proprietary trading, sell-side execution and clearing surveys into one publication.Its respondents are senior executives at banks, hedge funds, asset managers and prop trading firms. In June, a separate Acuiti survey with SGX found 13% of prop firms already trading prediction markets.Weekend Oil Futures Find Few SupportersThe survey found little appetite for extending traditional contracts to a seven-day cycle. Among prop trading firms, 65% oppose weekend trading in contracts such as oil futures, 30% see potential and 5% are definitely in favor.If weekend trading does arrive, 73% of prop firms would rather trade those exposures on traditional venues such as CME than on native crypto platforms, and 7% would choose decentralized venues such as Hyperliquid.CME already runs one such market. It switched its bitcoin, ether, Solana and XRP futures and options to 24/7 trading on May 29, and the first weekend drew about 7,200 contracts.On the sell-side, 48% of execution desks said none of their institutional clients want 24/7 trading functionality, 31% said a handful do and 21% cited a notable minority. A year ago, an Acuiti survey found 37% of prop traders optimistic about round-the-clock markets.Banks Build AI Committees, Prop Firms Allow More FreedomAcross all firm types, 24% allow a relatively free range of AI use. Another 35% restrict which tools employees can use but not what they use them for, and 34% restrict both.Two thirds of banks have set up a dedicated AI risk committee. Hedge funds more often run AI oversight through existing risk committees, and about a fifth of them allow relatively free use.Ross Lancaster, head of research at Acuiti, described "a market that is now building the governance and controls around its usage."The controls have not turned into a retreat: 87% of firms have not withdrawn an AI tool they had previously allowed. Confidence in the technology under stress is more limited, as only 18% said they could definitely rely on AI to make better decisions during volatile markets.Perpetual Futures and a Cloud DeadlinePerpetual futures are drawing more institutional work. Only a minority of sell-side execution desks offer perps today, but 53% are building an offering or considering one, as US venues race to list stock perpetuals for American traders.Risk management and modeling around the funding rate was the most common challenge cited, ahead of margin methodology and access to reliable liquidity.CME's plan to move its Globex matching engine to Google Cloud, starting in late 2027, is another pressure point. Of the sell-side desks surveyed, 43% have no vendor relationship with Google Cloud, and almost a third expect onboarding a new cloud provider to take longer than 12 months.On the buy-side, 88% expect the Bank of England's proposed minimum haircuts on gilt repo to raise overall funding costs, and 63% expect lower liquidity in the gilt market. Half said the rule would make the market more resilient.Business conditions remain supportive. Two thirds of network members did better in the first half of 2026 than a year earlier, and 68% are optimistic about the fourth quarter, with prop trading firms slightly less upbeat than the average.This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.