Compliance Workflows 2025: Specialised vs General AI
The financial industry is evolving, and so is compliance.
With the FCA increasing its enforcement on misleading financial promotions—a 97.5% rise in interventions in 2024 alone—firms must rethink their approach to regulatory oversight. Many companies have turned to AI for compliance, but not all AI solutions are built the same.
While general-purpose AI models like ChatGPT can assist with text analysis, they lack the specialised functionality needed for financial promotions compliance.
These tools often misinterpret risk factors, fail to retain context, and struggle to integrate into compliance workflows. Instead, firms are shifting toward dedicated AI compliance tools like Finspector, designed specifically to identify financial promotions risks, streamline compliance approval workflows, and enhance regulatory oversight.
In this article, we explore:
✅ Limits of using general AI for compliance workflows.
✅ Advantages of specialised AI.
✅ How firms can integrate specialised AI seamlessly in 2025.
The Problem: Why General AI Falls Short in Compliance
Many firms use large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT to assist with compliance reviews. However, while these tools are powerful for general language tasks, they introduce major inefficiencies and risks when applied to financial promotions compliance.
1. Random and Irrelevant Risk Flagging
General AI models often misidentify compliance risks, flagging benign phrases while missing critical violations. This leads to unnecessary manual reviews, slowing down compliance teams and creating bottlenecks in the approval process.
2. No Memory of Previous Adjustments
Each time a general AI model is used, it starts from scratch. It doesn’t retain compliance feedback, meaning compliance managers must reintroduce rules and context repeatedly, making it difficult to fine-tune risk detection.
3. Workflow Disruptions
Most general AI tools don’t integrate with existing compliance workflows. Compliance teams often copy and paste content manually, making reviews inefficient and disrupting structured compliance processes.
4. Limited Handling of Long Documents
LLMs have word and token limits, restricting the amount of text they can process at once. This means that financial firms must break up long documents, disrupting context and reducing review accuracy.
5. Inability to Analyse Video or Audio Content
Financial promotions increasingly include video ads, podcasts, and multimedia content. General AI models cannot review audio or video compliance risks, meaning firms must rely on time-consuming manual oversight for these formats.
The Solution: Specialised AI
Specialised AI tools like Finspector are built for financial promotions compliance, providing automated risk detection, workflow integration, and real-time compliance monitoring.
AI-Powered Risk Detection with Custom Checklists
Unlike general AI, Finspector can use your custom check lists to ensure that risks are identified according to your risk appetite and standards.
Seamless Integration with Compliance Workflows
Finspector integrates directly into compliance approval systems, enabling teams to review, approve, and document promotional materials in a structured workflow. This reduces manual oversight, speeds up content approvals, and ensures all compliance actions are audit-ready.
Advanced Compliance Review for Video & Audio Content
Unlike LLMs, Finspector can analyse multimedia formats, saving you immense amounts of time and resources.
How Firms Can Implement AI in Compliance Workflows Without Risking FCA Fines
Integrating specialised AI tools like Finspector into compliance workflows doesn’t require a complete overhaul. Instead, firms should take a strategic approach to adopting AI in compliance processes:
First, you must assess your specific compliance needs. For example, wealth management firms may prioritise social media compliance monitoring, while fintech companies may need AI to inspect advertisements and blogs from marketing.
Next, compliance teams should select an AI tool that integrates seamlessly into their existing workflows. Unlike general AI, Finspector is designed to work within structured review processes, allowing firms to automate risk detection without disrupting existing compliance operations.
Once the AI is integrated, you should engage in continuous training to ensure effective use of the tool. AI does not replace compliance teams, but instead, enhances their ability to review promotions faster and more accurately. Compliance managers must regularly refine their checklists to keep up with changing FCA financial promotion rules.
The Future of AI in Financial Promotions Compliance
The FCA has increased enforcement on misleading financial promotions, and with regulatory standards becoming stricter in 2025, compliance teams must embrace AI-driven compliance tools to stay ahead.
With regulations only getting more complex, firms must move beyond manual reviews and adopt AI-driven compliance workflows.
If you’re ready to take your financial promotions to the next level, Finspector is here to help. Start ensuring your promotions are clear, compliant, and consumer-friendly today.
