Navigating the AI landscape: insights from compliance and risk management leaders

AI in compliance

Moody’s has conducted an extensive global study into attitudes, adoption, and use cases for AI in the world of risk management and compliance.



Looking at the different forms of AI from machine learning to GenAI, we investigated what professionals across the globe understand about this technology and how they perceive possible benefits, risks, and outcomes.

Our research consisted of upfront interviews with global AI specialists, a survey of more than 550 risk and compliance practitioners from 67 countries, followed by interviews with some survey participants.

Get your copy of the study report and find out more about:

  • Perceptions of AI and predictions from the professionals
  • The most popular use cases for AI
  • Perceived advantages and risks of AI
  • The tightrope of regulatory development



A data story

How can Artificial Intelligence transform risk and compliance?


Engage with the results of our study into AI and compliance through this interactive data story. Select specific questions and see the percentage breakdowns;  filter and read the verbatim responses of participants; select a picture that shows propensity towards usage; and have the data presented to you by region and sector. Explore how Artificial Intelligence could transform risk and compliance using this dynamic data visualization.






Navigating the AI landscape

On-demand webinar


Listen to our on-demand webinar where the findings of our study into AI and compliance are revealed.

First up, Paul Nola, partner at Context Consulting, the research consultancy that conducted the study on Moody's behalf, guides us step-by-step through the results of the research.

This is followed by a panel discussion with global risk, compliance, and innovation experts, assembled to give their unique insight into the study, and on the future of the AI landscape. Moderated by Ted Datta, Senior Director, Head of Financial Crime Compliance Practice Group – Europe, Africa & Americas, Moody's, the panel includes:
  • Benedict Cheng, Group Chief Risk Officer and Group Data Protection Officer at PCCW (Hong Kong)
  • Carrie Chai, VP, Model Development,  Enterprise Risk Management at EQ Bank (Canada)
  • Franny Engle, Head of Compliance Reviews and Testing at Klarna (UK)
  • Tim Lutz, Managing Director, Compliance Data Innovation and Technology at State Street (USA)





Report findings

Adoption of AI


It’s still early days, but like most nascent stages of technology, there are a few testing the waters of AI in compliance and risk management and early adopters diving in to positive results.  


AI in transition: hesitation and innovation infographic



How Moody’s can help now

Innovative use of AI in risk and compliance

Name matching and screening

AI Review, Moody’s advanced screening tool, can cut false positives by as much as 80% to speed up decision-making. Our machine learning model generates an alert score for every name screened, serving as an initial screening filter. Experience a more streamlined name-matching and screening process with AI that delivers more precise results and fewer false positives.

Adverse media

Grid is our comprehensive risk database of adverse media, sanctions, watchlists, and politically exposed persons (PEPs). To process adverse media, articles are continuously ingested as soon as they become available. Multiple processes are run with each source provider for quality controls. Our Risk Relevancy, Article Deduplication, and Entity-Event Recognition models, combined with our keyword-based filters, are designed to help our customers identify only the risks that matter.

Uncover complex ownership structures

Drill down into multiple layers of ownership and across global borders to find the answers you need for UBO Discovery. Moody’s can combine leading leading machine learning (ML) with optical character recognition (OCR) and connections to live global registers to extract and analyze complex shareholder data - supporting audit-proof due diligence.





KYC Decoded podcast

Navigating the AI landscape: insights from compliance and risk management leaders

In this episode, we explore the findings from a fascinating original global study, conducted by Moody’s, that uncovers how compliance and risk management professionals see the role of AI in all its forms.

Listen along as host, Alex Pillow and Paul Nola, Partner at Context Consulting, dissect the findings and discuss the implications of those navigating the AI landscape in the world of risk and compliance. Highlights from the episode include:

  • The origins of the study
  • The importance of AI for compliance professionals
  • Significant and surprising findings
  • The advantages and risks of using AI in  compliance
  • The challenges of AI regulation

Removing bias from KYC: the AI advantage

We’ve all heard rumblings about the potential bias-related risks AI can bring when models aren't properly trained or governed with plentiful, high-quality data. But, how many of us have paused to consider flipping this paradigm?Could our own bias on the subject of AI cause us to overlook how consciously-infused AI technologies could remove dangerous biases from our KYC and AML processes?

In this thought-provoking conversation, host Alex Pillow discusses the topic with AI and ethics expert, Anna Nicolis, senior manager at Braithwate, who specializes in helping global institutions with risk and compliance challenges. Highlights of this episode include:

  • A look at what the word “bias” really means
  • The root causes of bias in society and within AI technologies
  • Where AI has potential to help eliminate bias in the compliance lifecycle
  • The role humans and data play in governing AI models



Report findings

Chicken or egg?

Are early adopters of AI able to do so because they have better internal data, or are they using AI for the purpose of improving their data? It is clear a data-maturity gap exists between those companies already using AI and the rest of the field.


The AI data dilemma infographic



Resources and reading

Articles on AI, machine learning, and generative AI in compliance

The financial services industry is undergoing a new transformation driven by artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, especially machine learning (ML). Compliance solutions powered by these technologies for anti-money laundering (AML), counter-financing of terrorism (CFT), sanctions screening, and so on as part of customer lifecycle management (CLM) are rapidly enhancing risk detection and mitigation capabilities.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to revolutionize risk management and compliance, promising extraordinary benefits to businesses worldwide. In our study, "Navigating the AI landscape: insights from compliance and risk management leaders," our 550 survey participants – and the AI experts we spoke with – believe there are the five key areas where AI's capabilities might be most effectively used.  

Generative AI in KYC workflows

As we help our customers leverage AI and ML technology in their screening and compliance workflows, we hear a few questions asked often. In this post we answer the questions about the distinction between AI and ML, their potential applications in Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) processes, and the challenges faced while adopting AI in the AML space.


Discover more on our Insights page.




Moody’s leading innovation

Using AI to innovate with purpose

Moody's always innovates with purpose, driving industry transformation by understanding and then utilizing the potential of cutting-edge technologies including AI, which forms one of our strategic technology pillars.

For more than 10 years, Moody’s has leveraged AI and machine learning (ML) to construct sophisticated credit risk models and to automate solutions for data extraction. Our aims are to minimize manual tasks and augment productivity to support clients, while placing ourselves at the forefront of digital transformation.

As a pioneer in the implementation of AI and ML, the journey continues with deployment of Generative AI (GenAI) for different client use cases. Visit our innovation insights page to find out more and to access resources on all our latest initiatives. 





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