Utilizing AI to serve as a Virtual Compliance Officer for an Enterprise

The Client

EY: A Global Leader Navigating Complex Regulatory Landscapes

EY - one of the world's largest professional services networks, offers a wide range of services including consulting, assurance, tax, and transactional assistance. As a global corporation, EY cooperates with multinational clients and must navigate and adhere to diverse local regulations globally. 

The Challenge

EY’s Journey from Manual Compliance Tools to an AI-Powered Whistleblowing Platform

In response to the EU whistleblower protection directive, EY needed efficient reporting and protection channels. In 2020, we built EY’s Virtual Compliance Officer (VCO), enabling anonymous misconduct reporting with smart case management and documentation tools. To improve efficiency, EY integrated AI to minimize manual tasks and offer AI-powered compliance chat.

What We Did

AI-Powered Compliance Portal with RAG Technology

The project centers around a self-service, AI-powered compliance portal that leverages EY's extensive document repository. The key feature, Resource Augmented Generation (RAG), allows the bot to extract information from the EY VCO database and generate responses based on existing documents. It can also trigger actions such as escalating issues to human officers. 

Tech Breakdown

Multilingual Intelligence and Model Flexibility

To ensure the highest response quality, we utilized various AI models. Apart from OpenAI models, this includes an image processing model for extracting text from images and a Multi-language model. One of the biggest challenges in the project was to ensure the bot can generate embeddings, meaning to analyze and compare documents across various languages to verify compliance with both local and international regulations simultaneously. The bot uses GPT-4 for text generation but is structured to easily switch between different models if required.

Integration and Orchestration

Embedding AI Into EY’s Compliance Tools Without Disruption

The bot seamlessly integrates into EY's existing application interface, serving as a Compliance Officer that enhances the chat with AI-driven automation. Our AI workflow tool, BuildEL, serves as the orchestration tool to coordinate user-AI interactions.

Secure Architecture and Data Flow

Designing a Privacy-First System That Balances Usability and Control

To provide data security, the bot operates outside the existing application, maintaining current conversations state, while the VCO stores long-term records. The workflow involves inquiries passing through BuildEL to the bot and back, ensuring a streamlined process.

The Impact

Empowering EY with a Smarter, Scalable, and User-Centric Compliance Platform

• Seamless AI Integration: Successfully embedded into EY’s existing system using BuildEL, enhancing workflow automation without disrupting operations.
• Smarter Compliance Conversations: Leveraged GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 Turbo for accurate, context-aware responses across compliance topics.
• Faster Knowledge Retrieval: Improved document access with PostgreSQL Vector Extension, enabling efficient, AI-powered search.
• Automated Image Processing: Enabled text extraction from image-based reports for broader data coverage.
• Global Language Support: Used multilingual embeddings for consistent compliance checks across jurisdictions.
• Intuitive User Experience: Delivered a cohesive UI aligned with EY’s standards, balancing AI interaction with human oversight.