Equity Trustees showcases ‘Aussie-first’ compliance AI engine

Leading independent trustee and executor, and one of Australia’s oldest businesses, Equity Trustees (ET) has unveiled an ‘Australian first’ use case designed to detect and prevent instances of compliance breaches in online content.

ET, one of Australia’s biggest and oldest trustee firms, recently implemented Haast’s award-winning AI automation platform, a multimodal (including text, image, audio and video content) system that analyses published digital content, including marketing material, for potential compliance anomalies.

Haast, a Canberra-based regtech developer, was declared winner of the Australian round of the 2024 Zurich Innovation Champion award in March this year.

Equity Trustees claims that the platform has improved team productivity by around 80%, significantly reducing the time taken to review troves of documents and online content by fund managers and superannuation providers.

The AI engine works by automating checks of live marketing content, constantly scraping and assessing thousands of online resources (websites, social media accounts etc.) published across client and third-party channels.

For instance, Haast notes that the tool can be used to identify potential greenwashing claims.

As well as post-publishing review, documents with specific content requirements can also be pre-checked by the system to weed out errors before they are in the public domain.

The AI model rules can also detect ‘clumsy language’ or terminology that stray beyond regulatory requirements. The platform can also be customised to create or codify rules specific to an organisation’s circumstances and risk tolerances, benchmarked using existing marketing review playbooks or by reverting to an AI-powered rule builder.

Content errors or issues are flagged and rated using an AI process – which is constantly adapting to keep up with variations – using adaptive AI.

The tool was recently piloted within ET’s Corporate and Superannuation Trustee Services (CSTS) function, with CSTS executive general manager, Andrew Godfrey, praising the solution as a “game changer for content compliance” that ensures the firm meets its trustee service commitment.

“Our job, essentially, is to provide that oversight to ensure they meet their legal obligations and remain compliant,” he said.

“This is a game changer for content compliance, allowing us in just minutes to scan, detect and possibly act upon a number of potential issues, saving what would take a person hours to do – and many more hours to correct if the wrong thing is published online and shared.”

ET managing director Mick O’Brien acknowledged that the solution is not “for everything”, with the business still people-centred first and foremost.

“However, there is no question that technology is the way forward – and AI is a part of that.

“The sheer volume and complexity of regulation is relentless and ever-changing. This is doubly important to Equity Trustees, as a highly regulated professional trustee.

“The expectation is that we keep up with the pace of change so we maintain the highest standards of governance – and that means our systems and processes must as well.”

Haast co-founder Jason Watling recognised the growing challenge for organisations balancing the “boom in digital marking” with an “ever-changing regulatory backdrop”.

“Many organisations [have] thousands of constantly changing pieces of content across documentation, websites and social media,” he said.

“Harnessing the power of AI can save businesses time and money while helping them remain compliant,” Watling said.

O’Brien added that the firm, despite its longstanding legacy as one of Australia’s oldest businesses and traditional roots in trusteeship, has “sound foundations” and a culture that “allows us to focus on innovation without compromising the core business of governance and compliance”.