XLoD Global 2024, held in NYC on June 11 brought together regulatory intelligence leaders, entrepreneurs, and tech enthusiasts from around the globe focused on organization experiences, best practices and technology approaches to the three lines of defense for risk and audit scenarios. While there were a broad array of topics covered- from AI and blockchain to cybersecurity and IoT, the issue of voice compliance- and how to best approach it was a topic that surfaced itself in numerous panel sessions, roundtables and customer interactions. As seen in one session, 67% of the audience is seeing an increase in voice compliance regulatory inquiries and exams.

We continually heard how voice compliance poses several challenges for organizations in the largely financial services audience that attended XLoD.  Because of the rise of Unified Communications and Collaboration, there is the very accepted notion that voice no longer exists in a silo, with data to be contained largely on-premise- and that voice use cases are everywhere, across contact centers, mobile devices, UCC platforms and more. As such, there is a strong need to capture and retain a wide range of communication modalities beyond just voice, such as text messages, chat conversations, and screen shares.

The compliance teams that visited Theta Lake were quite clear that they must ensure that all parts of the conversation are recorded and stored securely, which requires advanced recording solutions that can handle multimodal communication types across acomms, vcomms and ecomms. In addition, there were inquiries about the rise of generative AI assistants and summarization tools adding complexity to voice compliance, as organizations must selectively capture and retain the output of these tools while maintaining compliance with regulatory requirements. 

Another major theme we heard at XLoD was the need for accurate and context-rich transcriptions. The by and large consensus was that while baseline transcription technologies have improved, they may not be sufficient for compliance-specific transcription needs. Compliance teams require transcriptions that go beyond word accuracy and take into account the specific compliance topics and risks that need to be identified. Our view is that this requires the development of new approaches that incorporate context, enrichment, and specialized learning models to enhance transcription accuracy for compliance purposes.

Theta Lake’s General Counsel and VP of Compliance, Marc Gilman, presented at a well attended session entitled, “More Than a WhatsApp Issue Reducing Off-channel Communications and Improving Reconciliation”. With over 3B in fines in the last two years for inadequate recordkeeping and off-channel communication violations, this topic was timely and generated a lot of interest and discussion.

It was very clear that an “old” communication type like voice has been greatly impacted by the architectural, technology and regulatory changes that are taking place in the marketplace, and the tone we heard from attendees was overall positive, there is recognition of the opportunities for efficiencies and enhanced productivity for voice compliance efforts. At Theta Lake, we recognize the need for a strong, comprehensive approach to Digital Communications Governance, that incorporates other content types, and takes a flexible approach to all of the ways digital voice communications take place in the enterprise. We’d invite you to take a look at our White Paper: Key Compliance Considerations for the Shift to Cloud Voice to learn more.