Transforming Regulatory Compliance Management for SMEs with Generative AI

Streamlining Document Validation and Compliance Assessment for Scale and Efficiency

The client is a trusted compliance partner for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), delivering critical support and software solutions across HR, Health & Safety, ISO Certification, and Cybersecurity, among other essential areas. Understanding that SMEs often lack in-house expertise to navigate complex regulatory compliance landscape, the client’s teams identify and address core needs that drive operational resilience and growth for their clients. Their service model blends strategic consulting with modern technology solutions to ensure their clients not only meet but maintain compliance with industry standards.

To fulfill their mission of empowering SMEs to stay ahead of regulatory risks, the client’s leaders initiated a full-scale transformation of their entire regulatory compliance management line of business.

Two critical areas requiring transformation were document validation and compliance assessment across multiple service lines, particularly in the firm’s SMAS and ISO certification services. Before offering these certifications to their clients, the client’s assessors had to manually review and validate numerous compliance documents, checking for proper signatures, effective dates, and regulatory requirements. Historically, this process was labor-intensive yet manageable; but, as their client base expanded, so did the complexity of managing large volumes of regulatory documents.

In the SMAS line of business, each assessment required reviewing extensive safety protocols, risk assessments, and compliance histories for each project and contractor. Manual checks for document validity, date compliance, signature verification, and proper classification were time- and resource-consuming, leading to delays that strained the operational bandwidth of the assessors and increased the potential for human error. Manual processes, while thorough, limited assessors’ ability to efficiently handle the growing amounts of submissions, leading to higher operational costs.

SMAS Assessment Challenges

In ISO certification services, similarly, assessors needed to verify huge volumes of submissions across multiple domains, requiring precise document classification (e.g. by type or security level), date and signature verification, and summary preparation. With manual processes, each new client or certification added a proportionate amount of work, which demanded additional resources and extended processing times. As assessors had to manage diverse and complex document sets, each with distinct compliance requirements, manual reviews increased the risk of non-conformities, such as: a missing safety document, an improperly validated signature, or an out-of-date certification.

ISO Certification Challenges

The client’s leadership recognized that improving speed, accuracy, and cost-efficiency of their regulatory compliance services was essential for maintaining a competitive edge. They committed to developing a strategy to transform their service delivery model and maintain the high standards of regulatory compliance their SMEs clients expect.

Central to this strategy was an innovative solution powered by the latest advancements in AI, machine learning, and generative AI that could:

• Automate routine document validation processes to reduce the assessors’ workload and nonconformity rate
• Enable scalable growth of their SMAS and ISO LoBs without proportional increase in assessment team size
• Provide instant feedback and improve user experience for SMAS assessment and ISO certification clients
• Maintain high standards of regulatory compliance across different services and industries, while reducing operational costs

Developing such a solution exceeded the clients’s technological capabilities. They required a trusted partner to guide them through the entire process – from exploring the potential of AI/ML & GenAI to developing a fully functional solution and deploying it across the organization.

Seeking a starting point for adopting AI, the client joined forces with Provectus, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner with the AWS Machine Learning and Generative AI competencies. By closely examining the client’s business model and existing solutions, Provectus identified a clear opportunity: a GenAI-powered solution for streamlining management of regulatory compliance documentation.

Developing a Generative AI-powered Document Compliance Solution on AWS and Anthropic

The collaboration started with developing a Prototype that validated the efficiency of applying AI/ML & GenAI for such tasks as document classification, date verification, and signature checking. This approach allowed to test key functionalities of the solution with minimal initial investment, gather valuable insights for the full-scale implementation, and ensure alignment with business requirements.

The positive outcomes of the Prototype phase encouraged the client’s leadership team to expand the partnership with Provectus, leading to the implementation of a full-scale solution, powered by generative AI and large language models (LLMs).

The solution was envisioned as a user-friendly tool with the following key features:

• Document Classification. Intelligent categorization of input documents by Type and Security Level, to streamline processing workflows.
• Date Extraction. Precise identification, validation, and extraction of document dates and timestamps, to help eliminate manual routine.
• Signature Verification. Automated detection and validation of required signatures in input documents, to reduce manual checking time.
• Document Summarization. GenAI-assisted generation of concise document summaries, enabling faster review by assessors.

The solution was designed and built to deliver comprehensive document validation and compliance assessment functionality through:

• The intelligent document processing component that handles automated classification, categorization, date extraction, signature verification, and document summarization.
• The compliance assessment component that provides automated evaluation of regulatory compliance requirements, consistency checks, and nonconformity detection.
• The integration features that ensure seamless connection with SMAS assessment and ISO certification workflows through an API-first design that enables future extensibility.

From a technical perspective, the solution was built as a highly scalable, cloud-native solution leveraging a range of AWS and third-party services. The core infrastructure utilizes Amazon ECS with AWS Fargate for containerized microservices (i.e. powering the processing layer with FastAPI to manage the OCR and AI engines), Amazon S3 for secure document storage, and Amazon DynamoDB for metadata and processing results. The system employs Amazon SQS for message queuing, while Amazon Textract and Amazon Bedrock, with Anthropic’s Claude LLMs, power the OCR and GenAI capabilities.

The processing layer consists of FastAPI-based microservices for document handling, with dedicated APIs for document upload, data extraction and processing, and assessment. An asynchronous processing pipeline ensures optimal performance, while real-time status updates keep users informed throughout the document validation process.

Given the industry’s sensitive nature, quality control and security are critical aspects of the solution. Comprehensive monitoring via Amazon CloudWatch, performance tracking through New Relic, and code quality maintenance with SonarQube were implemented. The system maintains high security standards through end-to-end encryption, role-based access control (RBAC), and comprehensive audit logging, while complying with data protection regulations.

The solution is seamlessly integrated with the firm’s existing document processing tools, including the ones for ISO and SMAS workflows. The reliability is achieved through pipeline automation and zero-downtime updates, supported by comprehensive backup and recovery procedures.

The advanced AI/ML & GenAI capabilities were introduced alongside the development of a user-friendly self-service portal that simplifies document work for the assessors. The solution can process audit reports, logs, policies, certificates, risk assessments, health and safety documentation, contracts, HR files, and more. The portal’s users benefit from a simple document validation interface with automated preliminary compliance checks and clear visualization of compliance status. They can easily upload the documents to check for signatures, extract dates, and generate summaries. The solution quickly classifies the uploaded documents by Type and Security Level, significantly reducing manual processing time and minimizing assessment errors.

The solution represents a significant evolution in the client’s service delivery model, transforming cumbersome manual document validation and compliance assessment processes into an efficient, automated workflow. By combining cutting-edge AI/ML & GenAI technologies with robust cloud infrastructure on AWS, the solution enables the client to scale their services while maintaining high accuracy and customer satisfaction.

Streamlining the Delivery and Improving the Efficiency of Regulatory Compliance Services with Generative AI

The GenAI solution has enabled the client to start transforming their regulatory compliance management operations. This transformation has strengthened their position in the compliance sector, giving both their in-house teams and their clients the tools to navigate complex regulatory requirements with ease, speed, and accuracy.

With generative AI, the client has established itself as a technology leader in the compliance sector. Key competitive advantages include:

• Streamlined operations and processes, and reduced manual effort
• Lower operational costs through automated document validation and compliance assessment
• Improved user satisfaction through intuitive self-service capabilities powered by GenAI & LLMs
• Ability to expand and scale services without proportional resource investment into their teams of assessors
• Scalable and robust cloud infrastructure supporting continued innovation with AI/ML & GenAI

This technological edge has helped the client to attract and retain customers with enhanced service delivery, facilitate efficient scaling of operations without proportional cost increases, and quickly adapt to evolving regulatory demands.

The impact of generative AI was particularly notable in the SMAS assessment and ISO certification services.

In the SMAS assessment services, the GenAI solution automated routine document validations and checks, and ensured consistent, accurate assessment processes across the team to reduce nonconformities. By leveraging generative AI, the assessors can focus on complex evaluations and minimize errors, significantly cutting down rework. This automation-through-AI strategy has enabled the client to quickly and efficiently handle growing volumes of assessment submissions without increasing their team size.

In ISO certification services, the solution’s self-service capabilities for processing of ISO submissions made a difference. Its key features – document classification, date extraction, signature verification, and document summarization – streamlined and simplified document work for assessors, while elevating customer satisfaction and retention. For the client, the self-service functionality of the solution has become a market differentiator, drawing new clients and solidifying existing partnerships.

The transformative impact of the GenAI solution extends across multiple lines of the client’s business. The solution has enabled the firm to start reinventing their service delivery model while maintaining high compliance standards. The combination of automated document processing, intelligent data validation, and self-service UI capabilities, powered by AI/ML & GenAI, has created a future-ready platform that positions the firm as a trusted leader in compliance services for SMEs.

To sum it up: The GenAI-powered solution for regulatory compliance documentation processing has enabled the client to transform their SME services, achieve operational excellence, and reduce costs, solidifying their position as a technology leader in compliance.
 

Moving Forward

1. Learn more about GenAI’s potential from business and technology perspectives in The CxO Guide to Generative AI: Threats and Opportunities
2. Assess the readiness of your organization to adopt GenAI solutions with Generative AI Readiness Assessment with Provectus
3. Develop high-value generative AI use cases with “Generative AI by Provectus” offering