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AI or Artificial Intelligence is a self learning and/or self rewriting technology that mimics human mind, intelligence and decision making. It has the ability to evolve and learn basis the responses it receives in different situations. As per IEEE SA, AI is “the combination of cognitive automation, machine learning (ML), reasoning, hypothesis generation and analysis, natural language processing and intentional algorithm mutation producing insights and analytics at or above human capability.”

 

An application-oriented question on the topic along with responses can be seen below. The best answer was provided by Gaurav Saxena on 11 September 2025.

 

Applause for all the respondents -  Monica Salunkhe, Gagan Kathuria, KV RaviTeja, Gaurav Saxena , Gopu Nair, B.Ravi Sankar, Kanak Roy Chowdry, Solomon Gnanaraj,  Tushar Ghosh, Osama Qazaqi, Nehal Soni, Debajana Basu, Shailendra Rai.

 

Can AI Help You See Risks Before They Become Crises?

Featured Replies

Q 804. Organizations often rely on lagging indicators — audits, escalations, or after-action reviews — to discover risks, by which time damage may already be done. AI offers the possibility to detect patterns, anomalies, and weak signals much earlier.

 

Think of one process in your domain where early risk detection could make a huge difference. How could an AI solution help identify and flag risks proactively — and what mechanisms would you use to ensure these alerts are taken seriously without causing “alarm fatigue”?

 

The best answer will be selected on the basis of:

- Relevance and clarity of the chosen risk scenario  

- Practicality of the AI-driven detection approach

- Thoughtfulness in balancing sensitivity with reliability
 

 

 

Note for website visitors -

Solved by Gaurav Saxena

Early Fraud Detection in Auto Insurance

In Insurance space, especially auto insurance, the most damaging risk is of a claims fraud.

By the time it’s discovered (mostly after the payout), the damage is already done. It’s rarely a big indicator, but the small inconsistencies that slip through.

One process where I think an early detection would be really helpful is the first notice of loss (FNOL). When someone reports a claim, most systems treat it as routine unless something obvious is off. AI can help us with this issue.

 

AI can scan for patterns like how often someone has changed their coverages, subtle patterns in claimant's reports, if the accident timing and location matches with public data.

I have seen claims that look fine on the surface, but if you go in details, turn out to be fraudulent. AI could catch those early.

 

The challenge is not to overwhelm the claim adjudicators with false alarms. If every odd detail is flagged, people will start ignoring alerts completely. Building in a layered alert system - along with the yes/no flag, a risk score like "low, medium, high" with simple explanations attached.

For instance: “This claim shares a contact number with three other previous suspicious claims”.

 

Also, feedback loops should be added too. If an adjuster disagrees with the AI’s flag, that input should go back into the system to help it learn and get better.

 

In short, it is not just about catching the fraud. It’s about making intelligent systems which learn and grow with time to spot risks earlier, and let examiners focus on real customers who need help. Here, AI can help in early risk detection by helping the claim adjuster, not replace him/her.

I work in the IT industry as a developer. A common and high-impact example in a software project is software project planning and requirements analysis.

 

Risk Scenario: Requirements Ambiguity and Project Planning Gaps

  • Most of the software projects fail or might encounter significant overruns due to poorly defined or ambiguous requirements, inadequate planning, or undetected bottlenecks at the outset, or by some additional inputs coming at the last minute. The new requirements might alter the existing functionality or might cause a rework of the entire functionality.
  • Early risk indicators like unclear user stories, missing stakeholder input, or resource allocation conflicts, or unplanned requirement shifts or additions often go, and can make correction far more costly.

 

In the above risk scenario, AI can proactively surface ambiguities, inconsistencies, and can overlook gaps early in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), preventing downstream delays, rework, and project failures.

 

AI-Driven Approach

  • We can use Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms to analyze requirements, documents, project charters, and stakeholder communications for contradictions, missing elements, or ambiguous language. AI can then flag them for review.
  • AI models can also be used to scan historical project data to identify patterns from past failures. These may be such as team compositions, technology stacks, or integration schedules associated with high risks. AI can be used for predictive risk scoring for new projects.
  • We can create insights from the historical data and current data. These insights can be visualized in centralized dashboards, allowing managers, team leads and hierarchy to track risk status and take early action based on clear, data-backed signals.

Approaches to Prevent Alarm Fatigue

  • Intelligent Prioritization: Alerts can be scored based on likely impact and probability. Thus showing only the most critical and actionable risks prominently, while the other items still can be highlighted in the centralized dash-boards to make sure that every risk is assessed and worked upon.
  • Actionable Explanations: Each flagged requirement or detected project gap is paired with a concise, specific rationale. This avoids vague or generic warnings, so teams trust and respond to alerts. Thus, we can reduce the false alarms. As the dashboards can be monitored continuously by humans we can ensure that the work is on track and can assure in time delivery without any delay.
  • Collaborative Feedback: Teams can review, confirm, or dismiss flagged risks. This feedback can be used to retrain the AI model and suppress future false positives, steadily improving alert quality and relevance.

Existing or traditional risk control mechanisms such as internal or external audits, customer escalations or CAPA are reactive decision mechanisms post crisis has happened and these mechanisms being followed in organizations to mitigate the risks or prevent further occurrence of crisis;

 

AI is a powerful technology that we can leverage as a proactive decision mechanism to helps visualize risks before the crisis occurs. AI enhances human decisions rather than replacing judgement. Below are few benefits that AI helps:

·       Leaders to take proactive actions rather than reactive actions

·       Early alerts helps leaders to respond faster by eliminating detection time

·       Visualizing risks saves financial loss and reputation

·       Follow strong governance in preventing crisis situation

 

How AI handles risk and prevent crisis:

·       Forecast potential risks beforehand basis historical or real time data using predictive analysis

·       Identify unusual patterns and flag these issues named as anomaly detection, thereby preventing crisis

·       Respond to crisis in a better manner using AI Chatbots that will handle customer queries in crisis situation

·       Train leaders by creating realistic simulations for crisis situations

 

I have picked up AI driven anomaly detection useful in invoice processing and will explain the benefits of this feature:

_Identify duplicate payments - Same invoice sent twice by vendor for processing with different invoice numbers. AI helps in avoiding overpayments

_Identify fraud cases with higher amount charged – Vendor submits invoice with higher amount than usual. AI helps in avoiding financial loss

_Catches typo errors while processing – Sometimes processor does human error post invoices. AI helps in improving service quality by improving accuracy

_Identify missing information – Invoices submitted by vendors sometimes miss to provide mandatory information or provide incorrect data such as currency discrepancies, no supplier name or address, no tax codes, incorrect PO number, etc. AI helps to reduce invoice processing time

_Identify patterns for new vendors onboarded – Few new vendors invoices certain amount for the services that they are not offering. AI helps to expose these frauds of new vendors

 

AI identifies these anomalies using ML models, NLP, OCR+RPA and Graph analytics, so anomaly detection is a feature in invoice processing that helps take proactive decisions before crisis hits

Yes, AI can transform risk management from mere finding issue only during audits or post occurrence of an incident during RCA. From a reactive approach AI can transform entire risk management into a proactive one and help business in spotting anomalies and flag off early warnings before they become crises.

Let us explore the case using an example – Duplicate or fraudulent invoices in Finance.

Duplicate or fraudulent invoices are common risk in vendor payments. Traditional system often relies on rule-based checks (e.g. Invoice number+ date+ address + unique id+ account number) and leave it further at the mercy of risk compliance team to detect exceptions that may slip through (e.g. INV 333 vs INV – 333, or vendor name anomalies ART - Adi Ram Tech vs Adi Ram Tool, timing mismatches – same invoice submitted again after 3 months, amount manipulation – same service billed twice under different cost center).

By this time (when audit is being done) business has already lost money, plus additional cost of poor quality gets added in recovering the amount.

Traditional system needs to evolve and get integrated with AI. AI can be put to use for

Pattern and anomaly detection -

Fuzzy matching models to detect near duplicates in invoice numbers, vendor names, and address or payment timeline references.

Early warning or outlier detection to flag off unusual amounts, frequencies or timings compared to vendor/ payment history.

Highlight patterns related to vendor raising invoices - be it the volume, account, amount or time period.

Natural language processing to be used for reading invoice description to catch semantic similarity (Adi Ram Tech vs Adi Ram Tool). OCR along with API using NLP.

Leverage on existing system and integrate with AI workflow –

Process FMEA involving key stakeholders to be done to assess existing controls. Controls that can be fixed to be addressed through process automation. Controls beyond immediate fix to be further brainstormed for potential risk. Identified risks to be scored basis severity and occurrence. Risk mapping to be done and assign a score to each invoice based on probability of fraud or duplication. Build the risk matrix and mapping to be integrated in Risk model either using existing Powerapps + AI model.

Set a workflow to trigger early detection. Notifications/alert to be triggered to the mapped action owner as per the risk matrix. System will now be able to flag off high risk invoices before payment and not post payments during audits.

Run the model and perform UAT. Loop in the feedback and adjust variables and rerun the model and publish for use.

Preventing “Alarm Fatigue” –

Risk AI model to avoid overwhelming employees with false positives be configuring workflow , model for

·       Workflow to trigger notifications to concerned stakeholder to review the risk on detection.

-          Set rules to block fraudulent invoices considering the risk matrix. Payments to be blocked and exceptions to be routed for manual approval.

-          Set threshold for escalation as per business risk appetite, that need  immediate action

-          Medium and low risk alert to be reported only for information

-          Each notification/alert to come with the reason in subject line to keep the user informed and action required. With clear explanations and controlled alert volume, finance teams will take alerts seriously

This will enable trust, reduce alarm fatigue and maintain smooth operations, Risk AI model to be further connected to PowerBI for better monitoring, visibility, autonomous and intelligent decision making for a faster action.

·       Integrate Risk AI model with existing finance controls (Billing system, vendor onboarding – master creation, approval workflows, business rules).Ensure biases are addressed and compliance to security, ethics and privacy protocols.

·       Approval workflow - Set notification workflow along with risk score and explanation. High risk invoices routed for secondary approval.

·       Continuous monitoring – E.g. Post payment monitoring for duplicate disbursements across months.

Close loop with the feedback –

Once published, risk model will continuously learn from historical cases and auditor feedback. Model to be calibrated and republished. Keep the stakeholders informed on the feedback closure. This will build trust and adoption, reduce human fatigue and stress of risk crisis.

Performance monitoring -

Publish dashboards on set periodicity as part of proactive risk mitigation and monitoring. Continuous monitoring and the feedback loop will make the system robust over period of time.

Adopting AI in risk management will benefit any business in an earlier detection, proactive risk management, overall improved efficiency, smarter controls and a happier workforce.

Working of AI can be broadly categorized into 4 types: 1) Creation 2) Summarization 3) Discover & 4) Automate.  Discover capability can be leveraged for the following: identification of hidden patterns & insights from data, searching of resources & docs, monitoring of real time events.

Models can be trained on data, which are captured from server or sensors for analyzing & predicting future events like performance trend, CSAT, quality defects, temperature rise or machine breakdown etc. 

Similarly using ML, unlabeled historical data can be analyzed to identify unusual pattern of the data. 

Contract maintenance of existing service providers or fresh contracting of new service providers are considered the brain of healthcare industry. This eventually governs everything in healthcare business. Any mistake if remains in the contract, both auto and manual claim adjudication will get impacted in terms of payment of service providers, despatch of cheque to the correct address, service providers may not get payment as per revised rates or for the correct diagnosis. At the same time patients may not be able to book for appointments as per their requirement if contact details, language, visit hours are not updated. They can get delayed service from facilities if payment issue persists. These will generate D-SAT among facilities, doctors and patients.

Impact of these errors are far reaching for insurance companies. To mitigate these errors, multiple rework queues, different layers of quality audit, calls/email/chat to customer care center are required which increase claim processing cost by manifold which decreases profitability of the insurance companies.

AI can be used effectively to handle this challenge. Leveraging summarisation capability of Gen AI be helpful for decoding  large contract details.

In case of missing information automated alert can be raised to contract reviewing authority or network managers. Dependencies on individual processors' capability will be completely removed for identifying misses and raising clarification.

Along with misses if any abnormal information is there that also can be flagged and can be double checked by deploying HITL.

Once the clarifications are received, notification to the respective processors with TAT can be generated so that they can prioritize amid of their regular jobs accordingly.

History of these network managers or organisation can be further patterned and contact renewal success probability can be displayed to them during their online annual renewal.

Many times contract renewal comes with Special loading instructions along with regular contract documents. These special loading instructions are free text based documents and time consuming for processing. Using ML, processing of these free texts can be automated by updating the database as per instructions or clarifications can be raised.

Therefore, using AI contract data management can be further simplified, job satisfaction, accuracy and C-SAT of the stakeholders can be increased, profitability of the insurance companies can be increased by reducing a huge amount of rework, processing time, call reduction etc.

 

 

Yes — AI can play a big role in spotting risks early, often before they escalate into crises. Think of it as an “early warning system” that works faster and at a scale humans can’t manage alone.

 

AI can help in Alternative Investments Transfer Agency BPO domain by identifying risks earlier in several areas where manual processes, High volume, Time sensitive work etc.

Transaction Processing

              Incomplete (NIGO – Not in Good Order) type transactions, Subscription agreements can be identified through AI before they reach final review. This helps Transfer Agent to alert the fund about particular transactions before any cut-off dates. (So the investor won’t lose the opportunity).

Investor data and Compliance Risk

              AI Can validate Investor KYC/AML data and identifying (also alert) any potential fraudulent investor details.

Operational Bottlenecks

              As Alternative Investments clients have different product structures and they have different timelines (trade dates), cut-off dates, event start and end dates (Basically different TAT to be followed for different product structures).  Manually monitoring them is a tedious process if we support multiple clients and different funds. AI can help in identifying this early and provide warnings of any possible missing TAT for any particular work type/fund etc.  This way we will avoid the risk of missing SLA.

              Alternative Investments BPO has tax season volumes during the year. Based on the past volume trends, AI can alert about having appropriate staffing for the tax season. This would help the management to staff accordingly.

Client sentiment Risk

              This is one of the important area when we support more number of clients under the same roof. Based on the email interactions, queries, CMP feedback, we can track and tell clients dissatisfaction and risk of losing them. So that Management can take proper proactive actions before they become sensitive.



 

We can use AI in everyday life to manage and highlight any red flags in our stock and mutual fund portfolio.  One can spend just 5 minutes every month, quarter to just “Analyse his / her portfolio using the combined principles of Philip Fisher, Howard Marks, Warren Buffett, and Pulak Prasad. For each holding, my model will evaluate business quality, financial strength, downside risk, and valuation & highlight any red flags that could become future crises.”

You can change your parameters based on your risk types, core investment philosophy and amend the Risk-Prevention Checklist. Please find below my suggested 3 steps: 

 

  Step 1: The Core Investment Philosophies

Philip A. Fisher (Growth & Quality Focus)

  • This Look for companies with long-term growth potential and strong R&D.

  • This Assess management quality, integrity, and depth.

  • Identify Favor businesses with high profit margins and strong cost controls.

  • Please Avoid over-diversification; concentrate on a few outstanding businesses.

Howard Marks (Risk Awareness & Cycles)

  • Use this principle of Risk ≠ volatility; risk is the probability of permanent capital loss.

  • Please Focus on downside protection and asymmetric opportunities (more upside than downside).

  • Check and Understand market cycles: where are we in the cycle?

  • Just Accept that risk cannot be precisely quantified; use judgment and scenario analysis.

  • Please Avoid leverage and prepare for the unexpected real investment advice

Warren Buffett (Value & Moat)

  • Just Invest in simple, understandable businesses with durable competitive advantages.

  • Identify Favor companies with consistent operating history and high ROE with low debt.

  • Deep research on Management so that it should be rational and candid.

  • Do a deep Reaser each at historic price Buy at a significant discount to intrinsic value (margin of safety).

  • Think like an owner: Would you buy the whole business?

 

Pulak Prasad (Nalanda Capital – Darwinian Investing)

  • Just Avoid big risks first: survival is priority #1.

  • Always Buy high-quality businesses at fair prices; avoid fads and moonshots.

  • We Prefer boring, predictable industries with clear rules of the game.

  • I like to be extremely patient: hold for decades, not years.

  • Always Minimize Type 1 errors (bad investments) even if it means missing some opportunities. 

 

 Step 2: Unified Risk-Prevention Checklist

Here’s a periodic checklist to run on your portfolio:

A. Business Quality & Growth (Fisher + Buffett)

  1.  Does the company have long-term growth potential (products/services with future demand)?

  2.  Is the business model simple and understandable?

  3.  Does it have a durable competitive advantage (moat)?

  4.  Are profit margins strong and improving?

  5.  Is management competent, ethical, and shareholder-friendly?

B. Financial Strength

  1.  Check if ROE > 15% and consistent over 5–10 years?

  2.  Identify Low debt-to-equity ratio (avoid leverage risk)?

  3.  How is the Free cash flow positive and growing?

  4.  Identify No equity dilution risk (avoid frequent capital raising)?

C. Risk & Downside Protection (Howard Marks + Pulak Prasad)

  •  Run a simulation to find the worst-case scenario for this business?

  •  Check the margin of safety Is the valuation reasonable?

  •  Does the company operate in a stable, predictable industry?

  •  Identify any hidden risks (regulatory, currency, governance)?

  •  Validate if it is exposed to any market cycles?

D. Behavioral & Portfolio Risks for Mutual fund portfolio 

  •  Am I over-diversified or under-diversified?

  •  Am I chasing short-term trends or sticking to fundamentals?

  •  Can it be liquidated. Do I have liquidity needs that could force selling in downturns?

 

 Step 3: Risk Metrics for Mutual Funds

  • Alpha: Is the fund adding value over its benchmark?

  • Beta: Is volatility aligned with your risk tolerance?

  • Sharpe Ratio: Are returns justified by the risk taken?

  • Expense Ratio: Is cost eating into returns?

  • Portfolio Concentration: Too many overlapping holdings?

 Step 4: How to Automate & Periodically Run This

  • Create a spreadsheet or dashboard with these checklist items as columns and your holdings as rows.

  • Assign scores (1–5) for each criterion.

  • Set alerts for red flags (e.g., debt rising, margins falling, valuation stretched).

  • Review quarterly for stocks and semi-annually for mutual funds.

 

Based on this parameter I am sharing my mutual fund portfolio Risk Dashboard build suing AI: 

image.thumb.png.6f3d347c52ad58aaa629624d84a49ca6.png

  • Top ribbon of KPI cards: Total Portfolio Value, Largest Scheme Weight, Axis AMC Exposure %, NASDAQ-100 Sleeve %, NASDAQ-100 P/E.

  • Left column:

    • Bar chart – AMC Exposure (conditional color: red if > 20% cap).

    • Pie/Bar – Segment Exposure (India vs Intl vs Hybrid).

  • Right column:

    • Schemes table – Fund, AMC, Category, Weight %, Breach flag (red/amber/green).

    • Slicers – AMC and Category.

  • Footer panel: Triggers table (Threshold → Action).

 

In my scenario I must take the following action: 

1. Rebalance Concentration Risks

  • Parag Parikh Flexi Cap (~29.5%) → Above the 25% cap.
    Action: Trim gradually on strength or redirect new flows to hybrid or global value funds.

 

Note: Since I was not monitoring this, it has already crossed the threshold but If I was monitoring all parameters I could have taken a decision before it became red.

 

Hence, we can conclude that we can build dashboard to proactively identify risk using AI.  

In the Financial services domain, KYC update is the easiest as well as critical process especially if its related to monetary payouts. With Regulatory bodies clearly defining the requirements and controls to be built in a process, the shear volumes of transaction and the inherent pressure to complete the task within stipulated timelines can and may lead to oversight resulting in erroneous payout and in some instances deliberate financial frauds.

By creating an automated system of capturing key data sets from supporting documents submitted during KYC, these can be mapped to an individual's other financial footprints e.g. usage of same bank account elsewhere in ecommerce or other platforms. 

Creating a user profile with the KYC document and comparing the trends or digital footprints of that user could help identify early warning signs and flag off that particular transaction. The profile can also be shared with peers in the industry using a secure database format to have search their own database for holdings of such individuals and set up early detection based of past trends. Since this entire process being automated with least or no human intervention, the model would be devoid of bias or create false positive response.

AI can help in early detection of risk through analyzing project data, schedule and team workloads. It helps in identifying the bottlenecks or gaps gone unnoticed. Ai can flag this and suggest solutions though severity of the issue to avoid fatigue. It actually mitigates delays and prevents negative impact which could arise. Timely and relevant information helps in building trust and project management process overall. 

A bank using a simple parameter of approving personal loan based on good credit score is a scenario where AI can be trained on credit score and past payment history for assessing the eligibility and pushing for final approval.

Let us consider a large Application Maintenance Program for a Data Analytics Program running for a huge bank. We will explore how integrating an AI solution can help flag potential risks and what mechanisms can be used to take corrective actions based on these alerts.

1.       Predict job failures - Use AI to analyze historical run logs, error codes, dependency chains, and infrastructure metrics to predict which ETL processes or batch jobs or reports are at risk of failing.

2.       Detect the pattern of unusual spikes/drops in data volumes that will impact the batch completion and hence delay the downstream processes like reports to be generated for business users

3.       Repeated failures in a batch process can help to identify a potential bug and hence prevent recurring job failures

4.       Analysis of user tickets by priority, enhancement backlog and runtimes can be used to generate predictive analytics to identify hot spots and take necessary measures to prevent them.

 

Some of the mechanisms that can be implemented so that corrective actions are taken based on these alerts are –

1.       Create Alert Tiers based on the alert generated so that high probability alerts are not ignored.

2.       Provide context to the alert as how many business users or how many critical business users will be impacted if a certain alert occurs.

3.       Add a human loop to verify the alerts time-to-time and provide feedback on false alarms.

AI can enable early risk detection within the scope of my IT operations by continuously analysing data from infrastructure subject to continuous monitoring tools and across the entire distributed site infrastructure to spot anomalies, predict failures, and flag possible risks. which makes early intervention both timely and effective. This will allow proper reliability and advanced resource allocation, especially in live applications.
AI Risk declaration process:
The AI expected solution will be using data logs from different resources (monitoring tools, systems log, in-house developed applications, and sometimes external data which will make the learning process of an AI solution more realistic and tuned to the local solution by:
  • Using real-time reading and logs, this will allow the AI solution to forecast system failures, network dropouts, and downgraded service on critical systems.
  • AI solutions will be able to identify system abnormalities, detect operational risks, and identify any potential system breaches, sabotage, or resource misuse across different sites.
  • The more data volume we have, the more the AI system will improve prediction accuracy and reduce false positives.
  • After building an AI solution, it will be able to prioritise high-severity risks and address required resources, and possible alternatives and solutions.
How does this enhance my working environment?
Operationally, an AI solution should reflect the following benefits in my working environment:
  • We should be able to observe reduced downtimes by early predictions and proactive actions.
  • Better allocation of IT operations resources and having the opportunity to better plan for the coming projects and ongoing system risk-related patching.
  • Better system compliance and adherence with international regulatory platforms (HIPAA, CCPA)
  • Better cybersecurity detection systems and, as a result, a safer environment (security-wise)
  • An AI solution may help to detect safety issues in different recycling centres, e.g., using AI safe proximity cameras, where it detects any human in the deadly range of any heavy load vehicle.
 
How can an AI solution defeat alarm fatigue?
alert fatigue describes how busy workers (in all systems where an alarming system is in place) become desensitised to safety alerts
How to achieve that
To ensure critical alerts are taken seriously:
  • First, AI will categorise risks into different severity levels, which will keep the action required tailored to each case, and alarm fatigue will be minimised.
  • Second, the AI solution is deleting duplicate alerts and cancelling alerts that have already been resolved automatically.
  • Low-impact alerts are expected to be resolved by the AI system, where only serious issues will be escalated to humans.
  • Feedback is essential for similar AI solutions and which keep the AI solution refined and consequently decrease false positives.
An AI solution for risk detection allows IT operations managers to confidently identify, respond to, and mitigate risks proactively, improving operational efficiency with little need for resources.
 
  • Solution

In banks, one process where early risk detection could have a significant impact is fraud detection. Fraudulent activities, such as identity theft, unauthorized transactions, or money laundering, often evolve gradually or occur through seemingly normal behavior patterns that, if not detected early, can lead to severe financial loss, reputational damage, regulatory penalties, and customer trust erosion.

Traditionally, banks rely on lagging indicators such as customer complaints, audit findings, or transaction reversals to identify fraud. By the time these signals are detected, the damage may already be substantial. And, most recently there have been few fraud detection engines deployed by banks. However, those engines also are not able to identify new aged fraud. By using AI based tools, bank can proactively detect anomalies and new aged fraud in real time and also ensure that false positive alarms are reduced.

How AI powered solution would work in identifying new-aged frauds:

An AI-powered solution can create “Digital Twin” for every customer by leveraging their historical transaction data, customer profiles, their payment brackets, international visits, geographies etc. Here is how it can work:

  1. Pattern Recognition:
    Machine learning models can be trained on past transaction data to understand normal behaviour patterns for individuals and groups. For example, if a customer suddenly initiates high-value transactions which is unusual for him and also from a new location, this deviation could be flagged.
  2. Anomaly Detection:
    AI algorithms can detect outliers in transaction velocity, frequency, amount, and locations. These anomalies can trigger alerts for manual review to decide if it is fraud or not.
  3. Network Analysis:
    AI tool can map transaction flows and relationships between accounts. If a dormant account suddenly becomes active and starts funneling transactions through multiple accounts in quick succession, this behavior could be a sign of laundering or coordinated fraud.
  4. Sentiment and Behavioral Signals:
    AI models can incorporate customer communication, call logs, and complaint patterns to identify dissatisfaction or pressure tactics that may be precursors to fraudulent attempts.
  5. Continuous Learning:
    AI systems can continuously learn from new data and feedback loops, improving detection accuracy and reducing false positives over time.

What process would AI tool follow once alerts are generated:

Since one of the key challenges in AI-driven solution is maintaining the balance between catching genuine threats and avoiding false positive alerts, below actions can be taken:

  1. Giving scores to every alert:
    Every alert would be given a risk rating (High, Medium, Low) and basis these ratings next action will be taken. Low and Medium Risk alerts would be dealt by AI tool itself; however, High risk will be referred for human review.
  2. Human review:
    AI would route these high-risk alerts for human review to ensure that high risk alerts are reviewed properly to identify risk. Further, review Analysts can provide feedback on whether alerts were accurate, helping the system refine thresholds and reduce unnecessary alarms.
  3. Continuous learning for AI model:
    Alerts once reviewed will be fed back into AI model for model to get trained on human feedback, in order to ensure model’s accuracy. Regular model training ensures that reduction in false positive cases.
  4. AI Governance and Oversight:
    A governance framework will ensure that digital twin is not being mis-interpreted and not providing incorrect results. This adds layers of accountability and ensures that the system's output is aligned with regulatory requirements and ethical standards.

Overall, by combining machine intelligence with human judgment and thoughtful governance, this AI powered tool will be beneficial to capture fraud in real time and save customers money and bank’s reputation. This solution not only strengthens risk management but also transforms the way banks are identifying fraud today.

I work in insurance domain, and I can relate very well with the early risk detection as key risk parameter considering fund inflow to organization, there can be instances of financial fraudulent transactions and money laundering. These aspects can impact organizational financial health, regulatory concerns, and brand impact.  There are several early risk detection measures in place to handle such issues however they are dependent on the people and processes.

 

A system driven approach can be more advanced with a layer of human evolution can make this more efficient and robust. Organizations have measures such as fund source, background check of the payer, payment pattern and many more parameters to scrutinize but it led to high efforts, delay in payment settlement and in case of legit transaction it breaches trust of client due to high validation measures.

 

 

In the given scenario, we see a lot of manual effort and resource limitations, with the AI solutions one we can increase our sampling (maybe cover all transactions) as well as we can cover any new activity with different patterns, this can also be identified and validated further by human evaluation so it will not only reduce the effort but also it will scale our validation on preventing any falsified transactions to the organization.

 

AI driven solution model can analyze all financial transactions, qualitative aspects as client profiling, detect pattern on submitted documents, and most importantly import the history and map each transaction with a new pattern every time. The solution can leverage machine learning algorithms and can detect irregularities and emerging patterns that human analysts might miss.

 

Some examples such as,

  • Unusual transaction patterns or frequencies ( Volume and timeline)
  • Sudden changes in customer financial behavior (more risky investments, or investing in low ROI products)
  • Connections between apparently distinct accounts and entities ( Statement anomalies, money rotation etc.)
  • Sudden change in client organizational health and suspicious indicators (High stock rates, regulation, and penalties etc.)

 

We must ensure that the preventive alert and flag are considered, following measures could be implemented,

 

  • There should a risk score for each client or party, so the changes in scores can reviewed by risk team.
  • High Risk cases are handled on priority and updated back with finding in system for future learning of the model
  • Defining the alerts with context so system can be more efficient
  • Focus on false positive cases to train system with feedback and investigations
  • Make the system cross functional so it’s an Org wide practice and early detection is possible, may be at onboarding stage.  

 

Preventive alerts and flagging through AI system with human layer can be a better way of avoiding alarm fatigue.

  • Author

Congratulations to Gaurav Saxena, whose well-structured response on banking fraud detection stood out as the winning entry. His clear articulation of the risk scenario, the “digital twin” approach to AI-powered detection, and thoughtful measures to balance alerts with governance made his answer the most comprehensive. Close runner-ups include Monica Salunkhe, for her detailed and highly practical framework on invoice fraud detection, Osama Qazaqi, for a robust IT operations monitoring solution, and Gagan Kathuria, for his focused and realistic case on early fraud detection in auto insurance.
 

We also acknowledge the strong contributions from KV RaviTeja, B. Ravi Sankar, Kanak RoyChowdhury, Solomon Gnanaraj, Tushar Ghosh, Gopu Nair, Nehal Soni, Debanjana Basu, and Shailendra Rai. Each of these entries brought valuable perspectives from their domains, ranging from IT projects and healthcare contracts to KYC processes, portfolio risks, and insurance transactions. Their insights collectively highlight the wide applicability of AI in proactive risk detection and the creative ways professionals are thinking about reducing risks before they escalate.

 
 

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