Our sixth and seventh episodes—focused on “The Future of Compliance and Legal with a Digital Lens”—feature guest speakers Josh Hogue, Andreas Pyrcek, and Dr. Annie Green.  I asked our guests “what chatbots are, and a little bit more about how they play into the legal and compliance functions”.  Part of what Andreas said was:

“I think chatbots are really beneficial for legal and compliance practitioners, especially in the distribution to the first line, because most of the day to day work in legal compliance is consulting.  So people have questions reaching out to the compliance and ethics professionals and try to find a solution.  And the chatbot, as Dr. Green was saying, can go in two directions.  Firstly, the chatbot is having with you a conversation, trying to find a proper answer, even to the point where the chatbot is saying, I don’t find the proper answer for you, let me forward you to the respective person who can help you.  Secondly, the chatbot can work like workflow management and gather the proper information in a consistent way and also storing the information already that the individual who’s then reading finally through the questions and documents can make a decision.  So there are two definitely options you can use while you’re implementing chatbots.  I’ve seen very good solutions, especially in regards to legal and compliance consulting, where questions which are coming up from the first line from sales, from procurement, etc., can be actually navigated through the chatbot.  And where the chatbot is also providing a response or guidance.  I’ve seen also very good solution when it comes to policy digitalization where policies are completely in the system of the chatbot, and the AI behind that.  And once the question is being posed, like, I’m going to do a soccer game with the governor, the AI will identify the Governor as a public official and the soccer game as an entertainment event, and then refer to the right clause of the policy where it can pose whether it’s allowed or not, or where the certain professional can read, more in detail, what are the compliance and legal requirements inviting a public official to an event.  So the technology for chatbots is significant material, and I think it’s a great added value also for the compliance department.”

Interested in hearing more?  Check out Episode 6 (available January 31, 2022) and Episode 7 (available February 24, 2022).