Organisations across industries face increasing pressure to comply with a growing array of regulations, from data privacy laws to financial, environmental, and industry-specific standards. Failing to comply can result in hefty fines, legal consequences, and lasting damage to brand reputation.
However, keeping up with compliance obligations is becoming more complex and costly, especially as regulations evolve and expand across global markets. This growing compliance burden places significant strain on businesses, demanding more resources, tighter controls, and constant vigilance.
This is where artificial intelligence (AI) offers compelling value by automating routine tasks, improving accuracy, and enabling real-time monitoring, AI has the potential to significantly reduce the cost and complexity of staying compliant.
What is the compliance burden?
Managing compliance often involves extensive manual work, from reviewing documents and monitoring transactions to updating policies and preparing audit reports.
These processes are not only time-consuming but also prone to human error - leading to increased risk and cost. The burden is particularly heavy for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which often lack the in-house expertise or tools to keep up. In contrast, larger enterprises typically have compliance departments and can invest in technologies to streamline the process, although the scale and complexity of their operations present challenges of their own.
How is AI transforming compliance?
AI has the potential to transform compliance by making it faster, more accurate, and significantly less resource-intensive. Technologies like natural language processing (NLP), machine learning, and automation enable organisations to process vast amounts of regulatory information and internal data in real-time.
AI can parse complex legal documents, extract key obligations, and flag inconsistencies or risks automatically. Through anomaly detection, it can identify unusual patterns or behaviours that may indicate fraud, non-compliance, or operational risk. Additionally, predictive analytics allows businesses to anticipate potential compliance breaches before they occur, enabling a proactive approach rather than a reactive one.
Together, these capabilities help streamline audits, reduce manual workloads, and improve overall compliance accuracy while enabling teams to focus on higher-value tasks.
Aida: a dependable AI solution redefining compliance
Our AI digital assistant, Aida, is a transformative tool in compliance, offering a unique blend of precision, security, and user-centric design.
Unlike generic AI chatbots, Aida operates exclusively within a company's curated compliance framework, drawing from Skillcast's extensive library of e-learning courses and legislative content to provide accurate, policy-aligned responses. This ensures that employees receive reliable guidance tailored to their organisation's specific regulations, enhancing decision-making and reducing the risk of non-compliance.
Aida's commitment to confidentiality is vital; it refrains from using external data sources, mitigating the risks associated with public AI tools. By delivering personalised, bite-sized training modules and real-time assistance, Aida not only streamlines compliance processes but also fosters a culture of continuous learning and accountability within organisations.
What is a use case of AI in compliance?
As the regulatory landscape becomes increasingly complex, organisations are turning to artificial intelligence to modernise and streamline their compliance operations.
Enhancing compliance training: Lessons from Barclays
In a highly regulated sector like banking, staying compliant isn’t just a legal necessity, it’s a cultural imperative. To help employees navigate complex rules and make compliance more accessible, Barclays partnered with Skillcast to integrate Aida into its learning ecosystem.
By acting as an always-available compliance companion for employees, Aida offered real-time, policy-based answers to regulatory and ethical queries. Instead of digging through lengthy manuals or waiting for compliance officers to respond, employees could ask Aida questions in natural language and receive accurate, contextual guidance instantly. This sped up decision-making and reduced the risk of unintentional non-compliance.
Barclays highlighted the importance of enhancing small, high-friction processes like finding the right policy information without overhauling entire systems. They also stressed that while AI-driven efficiencies are real, they are only effective when paired with strong human oversight to ensure reliability, accuracy, and ethical use.
Barclays took a gradual approach instead of scaling too quickly, focusing on proof-of-value, internal trust-building, and robust risk assessments. They cautioned against the temptation to delay AI adoption until the technology "catches up," noting that waiting too long may leave organisations behind their peers and potentially exposed to greater compliance risks.
What are the benefits of AI in compliance?
AI delivers significant benefits in compliance by increasing efficiency, accuracy, and adaptability. It offers:
- time and cost savings by automating manual reviews and speeding up audits, freeing up compliance teams to focus on higher-value tasks.
- improved accuracy where AI reduces the risk of human error and ensures more consistent interpretation of policies and regulations.
- real-time insights which supports a proactive approach to compliance, allowing organisations to identify and address issues before they escalate.
- scalability, enabling businesses to manage growing regulatory complexity without a proportional increase in resources.
What are the challenges and considerations?
While AI offers powerful advantages in compliance, it also presents key challenges that organisations must carefully manage. Data privacy and AI transparency are critical concerns, as businesses must ensure that AI systems handle sensitive information securely and provide clear, explainable outcomes.
There is also a continued need for human oversight to validate AI outputs, make judgment-based decisions, and maintain accountability. Additionally, companies must navigate AI-specific regulations, such as the EU AI Act, to ensure their AI tools meet evolving legal and ethical standards. Balancing innovation with risk management is essential for responsible and effective AI adoption in compliance.
What is the future of AI in compliance?
The future of AI in compliance is set to become more dynamic, intelligent, and accessible. Regulatory sandboxes are creating safe environments for businesses to test AI solutions under real-world conditions with oversight, encouraging innovation while managing risk.
Generative AI is emerging as a valuable tool for interpreting complex policies and generating reports or guidance in plain language, making compliance more user-friendly and actionable. At the same time, the industry is moving toward "compliance-as-a-service" platforms, where AI-driven tools provide on-demand compliance support, scalability, and continuous updates, helping organisations stay ahead of regulatory change with greater agility and confidence.
Written by: Emmeline de Chazal
Emmeline is an experienced digital editor and content marketing executive. She has a demonstrated history of working in both the education management and software industries. Emmeline has a degree in business science and her skillset includes Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and digital marketing analytics. She is passionate about education and utilising her skills to encourage greater access to e-learning.
