They say the only constant in life is change. It’s a phrase compliance teams understand all too well. For enterprises operating in today’s volatile regulatory environment, few things change as quicky—and dramatically—as compliance standards.
Keeping up isn’t just toilsome, it’s costly. According to multiple sources, enterprises spend as much as a quarter of business revenue on compliance. It’s no wonder more and more organizations are turning to technology—and artificial intelligence in particular—to lessen the burden.
Just what does regulatory compliance look like in the AI Era? Here’s a hint: it’s changing too. But, in this case, the pendulum is swinging in favor of the enterprise. Let’s explore the evolving world of modern compliance and how enterprises are adapting—and gaining a sizeable advantage—with the power of AI…
What is regulatory compliance?
Regulatory compliance is the process enterprises take to adhere to various laws, policies and standards set by government agencies, accrediting organizations and other regulatory bodies. According to the American Bar Association, the purpose of regulation is “to align private behavior with the public interest.” For enterprises, this translates roughly to balancing consumer interests with business objectives.
Compliance is often viewed through the lens of deterrence, with violators subject to fines and other penalties in accordance with the severity of their actions. Just who determines what a compliance violation—and its corresponding punishment—is? It depends on several factors. Chief among these are where an enterprise conducts business and what industry it operates in.
Compliance requirements by region
Compliance rulemaking often starts at the government level. This makes sense considering the primary goal of compliance is to protect public interest. However, different governing bodies have different views of what that interest is. As a result, compliance regulations can differ—sometimes wildly—from country to country and even among individual states or regions. Examples include:
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Established by the European Union in 2016, GDPR mandates how organizations that conduct business in the EU must collect, store and manage personal data. This regulation not only applies to businesses based in the EU but also to international companies that process data for EU residents.
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
Created in 2018 and amended in 2020, the CCPA outlines the privacy rights of California consumers as related to the use, sale and access of their personal data. Like GDPR, the CCPA applies to businesses based both in and out of California.
Regional Personal Data Protection Laws (PDPL)
Many countries and multinational regions have their own Personal Data Protection Laws (PDPL). In the Middle East, for instance, Bahrain, Egypt, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have each established PDPLs in recent years. While many are modeled after GDPR, variations exist. For example, Bahrain’s PDPL includes provisions for prison sentences of up to 1 year for compliance violators.
Compliance requirements by industry
In addition to complying with broad national and/or regional requirements, many businesses must adhere to industry-specific compliance standards. These are often set by specific governing agencies and accrediting organizations. Penalties for noncompliance can include fines and loss of accreditation. Examples of compliance standards by industry include:
Healthcare
Since 1996, HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) has established “federal standards protecting sensitive health information from disclosure without patient's consent.” (Source: CDC.gov) Proposed updates for 2025 include enhanced cybersecurity modifications for electronic protected health information.
Finance
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) is an information security standard designed to protect credit cardholder data and prevent fraud. PCI DSS applies to merchants, technology developers and solution vendors that process payment information from the major card companies. Compliance validation is performed annually or quarterly (based on transaction volume) by self-assessment questionnaire (SAQ), internal security assessor (ISA) or external qualified security assessor (QSA).
Telecommunications
Telecommunications providers are required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to protect customer proprietary network information (CPNI). According to the FCC, that includes notifying consumers and law enforcement of data breaches involving CPNI and filing certifications documenting company compliance with CPNI rules each year.
Insurance
Insurers operating within the U.S. must adhere to various legal and ethical compliance requirements established by state and federal governing bodies and accreditation organizations. These include licensing, privacy, policy, rate and claims handling rules. (The National Association of Insurance Commissioners outlines these in its Guide to Compliance with State Audit Requirements.)
How AI is transforming regulatory compliance
Traditionally, compliance teams, led by a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO), would shoulder the compliance burden for an enterprise. These teams could range from a few compliance officers to a staff of more than 50, depending on the organization’s size and revenue. Their responsibilities include monitoring business activities and conducting audits in accordance with compliance rules.
Even before the rise of e-commerce, compliance was an onerous task. In today’s Cloud-connected world, it’s downright impractable. Compliance teams are expected to monitor, analyze and provide audit trails for millions of digital interactions worldwide, including voice recordings, emails, text and chat threads. These files can be difficult to access, due to data quality, formatting and ownership barriers. Government-mandated data residency requirements and restrictions complicate matters even further.
Fortunately, enterprises don’t have to face these challenges alone. AI is transforming the compliance picture, allowing enterprises to analyze enormous volumes of data accurately, efficiently and, in some cases, in real-time.
Take call recording for example. U-Capture, a leading enterprise communication recording solution by Uniphore, enables organizations to capture, search and audit voice, screen data and rich metadata from100% of enterprise interactions. Built on a modern, extensible cloud architecture, the solution bypasses traditional data residency and ownership barriers, giving enterprises total access and control over their data. That sovereignty is critical for providing the real-time monitoring, comprehensive reporting and robust audit trail required by regulations like GDPR, PCI DSS and others.
Equally important for compliance teams is the solution’s ease of use. U-Capture’s intuitive interface puts everything compliance officers and auditors need in one place, including:
- Advanced policy controls for recording/capture, storage (BYOS) and data residency
- Fine-grained access control and enterprise organization support
- Comprehensive audit logging for total transparency into system access and changes
- Bulk legal holds and more
Lastly, the solution enables organizations to safely capture conversations while enforcing security and privacy standards—a vital consideration in the Cloud Era. Advanced data security features include:
- Multi-step authentication and authorization at the employee and customer levels
- Access management controls for assigning access privileges by role and user
- Tenant data isolation via JWT tokens for access control and centralized token validation
- Data management, security and encryption using clusters, regional availability zones and built-in data backup protocols for infrastructural failures
- End-to-end monitoring and incident response via advanced observation tools, 24/7 on-call rotation, automatic alerts and more
The future of regulatory compliance is being rewritten
AI-powered solutions like U-Capture aren’t just improving critical business functions; they’re reshaping how enterprises approach compliance itself. Now, organizations can ensure complete end-to-end compliance at a fraction of the cost and manual effort previously required. What’s more, they can adapt to new rules and policy changes on the fly—without extensive training or process reconfiguration. That combination of efficiency, agility and scalability is ushering in a new age of enterprise compliance. And it couldn’t come at a better time.
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