“Compliance doesn’t have to be a bottleneck; it can be acompetitive advantage,” said Aydin Bonabi, CEO and co-founder of Surveill,highlighting the transforming role of technology in financial services.Speaking at the Finance Magnates London Summit 2025, he emphasized that modernbrokers face growing regulatory scrutiny while trying to scale theirbusinesses, and that AI tools are increasingly key to balancing speed andoversight.In an interview with Jonathan Fine, Content Strategist atUltimate Group, Bonabi expanded on these themes. A recurring topic acrosspanels and side discussions was “negative friction” in financial services—wherecompliance,traditionally seen as a cost center, can either hinder or accelerate growthdepending on how it is managed. Bonabi argued that artificial intelligence isreshaping how brokers manage risk without slowing operations, turningcompliance into a potential differentiator.Surveill AI Raises $1 Million for Compliance ToolsSurveill AI is a US-based compliance technology company thatprovides AI-driven tools for monitoring communications, marketing, andregulatory content in financial firms. Its platform uses rule-based artificialintelligence to identify potential compliance risks, ensure adherence toregulatory standards such as FINRA and the SEC, andmaintain traceable audit records.The system is designed to support human compliance officerswhile reducing the time and cost of oversight. Thecompany raised approximately $1 million in seed funding in 2025 to developits technology and expand its market presence.Monitoring Influencer MarketingBonabi, speaking on the monitoring side of the complianceequation, focused on one of the industry’s most persistent pain points:oversight of introducing brokers and influencer-driven marketing. Regulators, particularly in theUK, are paying close attention to what is being communicated to retailclients, even when those messages originate far from a firm’s own marketingdepartment.“Firms have the obligation to monitor these IBs,” Bonabisaid, noting that the distance between affiliates and the broker creates “atremendous amount of risk.” Surveill’s systems, he explained, scan publishedmarketing outputs across more than 190 languages to identify statements thatcould mislead consumers or breach regulatory guidelines.Early Flagging Prevents IssuesThe risk is not hypothetical. Bonabi pointed to cases whereAI-driven monitoring identified problematic claims made by affiliates thatcould have resulted in regulatory action or reputational damage. By flaggingsuch issues early, he said, brokers were able to intervene before enforcementcosts mounted.Compliance Meets MarketingA notable point of agreement during the discussion was thatcompliance and marketing are no longer operating in isolation. While complianceteams remain the ultimate gatekeepers, Bonabi said Surveill increasingly worksdirectly with marketing departments—an approach that reflects changing internaldynamics at brokers.Reducing Approval Bottlenecks“Marketing teams want to get content out as fast aspossible,” he said. “Compliance represents a bottleneck.” His argument was thatAI can ease this tension by reducing approval times from days to minutes,without lowering regulatory standards. In this model, technology does notreplace compliance officers but augments them.AI as Virtual Compliance OfficerBonabi described Surveill’s AI as “a compliance officer thatis trained to operate like an in-house compliance officer,” built aroundregulatory rules rather than probabilistic guesswork. Each flagged issue islinked to a specific rule, accompanied by an explanation and a citation—aneffort to address regulators’ and firms’ demands for traceability andtransparency.Managing AI ReliabilityThe question of AI reliability inevitably followed. Largelanguage models have drawn scrutiny for so-called hallucinations—confident butincorrect outputs that can be dangerous in a regulated environment. Bonabi wascandid about early challenges, saying initial hallucination rates were around30 percent, though he claimed they have since been reduced to zero through whathe described as an “agentic framework” involving multiple AI checks on eachpiece of content.Human-Led AI Oversight“We believe in the concept of human-led AI,” he said,stressing that a human compliance officer still signs off on every decision.The anecdote underscored a broader point echoed across the summit: AI adoptionin financial services is less about autonomy and more about controlledscalability.Changing Compliance MindsetLooking beyond technology, Bonabi reflected on how attitudestoward compliance have shifted over the past decade. Drawing on his experienceas an industry veteran and former FXCM executive, he said firms have longviewed compliance as a “necessary cost center.” That mindset, he argued, isincreasingly at odds with the need to scale in a tightly regulated market.Technology Reduces Operational Friction“If compliance cannot scale, then there’s friction,” hesaid. The opportunity, in his view, is to “unlock compliance and makecompliance a competitive advantage for the firm.”That framing resonated with the summit’s broader narrative.As regulatory scrutiny intensifies and marketing channels become morediffuse—spanning influencers, affiliates, andglobal audiences—manual processes are struggling to keep up. Technology, whencarefully governed, is emerging as a way to reduce friction rather than add toit.Compliance Shapes Growth TrajectoryBonabi hinted that new client segments, includingproprietary and funded account firms, may soon come into focus, suggesting thatthe same pressures are spreading beyond traditional retail brokeragemodels.For an industry facing growth constraints and increasedoversight, the discussion in London focused on compliance beyond enforcement.How firms manage compliance may affect both the pace and sustainability oftheir growth.This article was written by Tareq Sikder at www.financemagnates.com.