Attributed to Sarah-Jayne Van Greune, who is the Chief Operation and Risk Officer for card payments processing solutions company, PAYEN/ ILLIXUM
For some businesses, compliance is a final thought. First, they look for the kind of tech they want and the processes they think will make them the most efficient. Next, they go through the rigamarole of implementation, sometimes paying huge sums of money for third-party help or training. And only then, once everything is in place, do they take a step back and think: does this comply with the legal framework we’re working in?
When you write it out like that, it’s obviously not the right way round of doing things. Legal compliance, after all, trumps any other requirement at the end of the day. But you would be surprised at how often this happens.
Every business should be a compliance-first business. Ingraining compliance into all decisions safeguards you from legal complications further down the line. However, the problem arises that regulations rarely stand still, and if businesses want to grow, they need to explore new areas, which will often complicate compliance.
Using AI for Compliance
AI can be the perfect tool to help businesses ensure they stay regulation-compliant. AI’s main strength lies in its ability to analyse and process large amounts of data at scale. In terms of compliance, this means sorting through transaction data, employee records and social media to help businesses identify potential risks. For example, when used by financial organisations, it can help monitor and flag unusual transactions by identifying patterns and relationships that human analysts might miss.
This helps at all ends of the spectrum because while it’s great that banks can use this technology to crack down on criminal organisations, everyday people will also feel the benefits. Traditional methods of flagging unusual transactions have often found normal consumers locked out of their banks either due to human error or insufficiently complex automated checks. AI will help crack down on these false positives, meaning that one extravagant purchase or forgetting to notify your provider you’ve gone abroad won’t stop you from accessing your finances.
AI can also be used to monitor and augment existing compliance programmes to ensure they’re running effectively. By gathering data on performance, artificial intelligence can root out areas where the programme is lacking and even pre-empt corrective action, such as insufficient employee training or improperly reported expenses. These same characteristics will also make it easier to update programmes to ensure they remain compliant with updated regulations.
Complying with AI Regulations
The modern compliance officer should be looking to AI as handy tools, aids that will help them become more efficient, rather than any kind of competition. Creating an environment that not only values compliance as the first port-of-call, but one that is also assisted by AI. However, the other side to AI that compliance officers need to be aware of is ensuring that the AI they use is compliant with the relevant regulations. As AI becomes more prevalent, various organisations around the world are drawing up legal frameworks that dictate the responsible use of AI.
In Europe, the main source of governance is the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, the cornerstone of which is a classification system that decides the level of risk an AI technology could pose to its users. Many businesses don’t have to worry about being high risk, as those levels are generally reserved for programmes that govern things like autonomous cars or medical devices. However, generative AI programmes, which many businesses are likely to use to augment their services, are included.
While the onus will often be on the developer to ensure the AI is properly compliant, any compliance-aware organisation should ensure that the data they collect with the AI is correctly stored and processed.
Looking forward
AI isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, it is only inevitable that it will only continue to grow and become more prevalent over the next few years. Its ability to learn and adapt will see its uses multiply exponentially, and each time, businesses should be looking for ways to incorporate it into their operations.
As AI becomes more commonly integrated into new systems and programmes, businesses will come to rely on it more for day-to-day operations. This only reinforces the point that businesses should function as compliance-first organisations, allowing much of the onerous work involved in compliance to be left to automation.
