AI agents help banks speed regulatory responses

Workday hosted a webinar where company representatives and a moderator outlined how AI agents can help financial institutions respond after regulatory changes. Speakers described the data and coordination gaps that slow assessments and the technical steps institutions can take to address them.

Panelists said a single regulatory change often triggers work across finance, procurement, legal, human resources, operations and IT. Teams must identify affected contracts and suppliers, decide whether customer relationships require review, update processes, collect required reporting data and estimate costs or workforce changes. The time needed to find and link information across systems frequently delays action.

According to Patrick O’Donoghue, regional sales director at Workday, and Daniel Pridham, principal enterprise architect at Workday, AI agents can assemble contract terms, supplier records, financial ledgers, organisational charts, policies and process histories into a single, searchable view. With that context available, compliance, legal, finance and HR specialists can focus on judgement and decision-making rather than on gathering data.

The panel mapped a typical workflow after a regulatory notice: an initial impact assessment to flag affected data and obligations; targeted contract and supplier review; design of process and system changes; and updates to reporting and monitoring. At each step, agents can surface relevant documents, highlight inconsistencies, flag reporting gaps and indicate which teams should be involved to speed handoffs and clarify responsibilities.

Speakers recommended practical integration steps: establish secure connections to core systems so agents can access contracts and records; define roles and approval points so human reviewers validate agent outputs; and maintain audit trails and governance controls to document decisions. They said IT and data teams must provide clean, accessible sources, while compliance and legal teams set rules for interpretation and escalation.

Panelists identified stakeholders who should be involved early, including compliance officers, in-house counsel, finance leaders, procurement and supplier managers, HR representatives, operations and IT, and data governance teams.

The panel outlined expected results: faster identification of affected contracts and counterparties, reduced time assembling data, clearer assignments of remediation work and quicker delivery of reports to regulators. They said these outcomes rely on connected data sources, defined escalation paths and human experts retaining final decision authority.

Speakers also noted limits and safeguards: agents need careful configuration to avoid misreading contract language, firms must enforce access controls and logging to meet regulatory requirements, and regular review and tuning of models is necessary to maintain accuracy.