AI delivers measurable gains across AML lifecycle

An online webinar hosted with NICE Actimize brought together financial crime practitioners to examine where artificial intelligence delivers measurable value across the anti-money laundering lifecycle and how institutions can operationalize machine learning, large language models and agentic AI while meeting governance and regulatory requirements.

Panelists focused on moving beyond pilots and discussed embedding AI into customer onboarding, know-your-customer processes, transaction monitoring, investigations, case management and regulatory reporting.

Panelists identified specific use cases producing measurable outcomes: automated adverse media screening to surface relevant negative information; data-driven customer risk assessments that aggregate multiple signals; screening optimization to reduce false positives; alert triage to prioritize cases for human review; automation of investigation tasks; and drafting of suspicious activity reports.

Panelists noted that integrating data from onboarding, transaction monitoring and external feeds can create a more complete view of customer risk and support faster, better-informed decisions. They emphasized that AI outputs need to feed into existing workflows and case management systems so alerts and risk scores appear in investigators’ day-to-day tools.

Regulatory and governance issues were a core part of the discussion. Regulators set expectations for responsible AI use, and firms must provide transparency and explainability for AI-driven decisions, maintain model risk management practices and ensure appropriate human oversight. Panelists described documentation, testing and validation as key governance elements.

The panel discussed build, buy or hybrid approaches for AI capability development. Factors raised for the decision included technical expertise, data quality and availability, time-to-value, and ongoing maintenance and governance costs. Agentic AI was presented as a complement to existing tools that can automate routine investigative tasks and assist with report drafting while leaving high-risk decision points to human analysts.

The discussion focused on documented outcomes and implementation paths that align with compliance and risk-management frameworks. The panel included Nicola Eschenburg, EMEA AML Strategy Leader at NICE Actimize. Teresa Connors served as moderator.