AML alert investigations that arrive with the evidence gathered and the rationale drafted.
Bluegrass builds investigation systems for banks, credit unions and fintechs. Each alert arrives with the evidence gathered and a recommendation drafted, so investigators review cases instead of assembling them, and escalated cases come with a draft SAR narrative.
The system follows your procedures, runs in your own environment and records every step, so each decision comes with the evidence an examiner will ask to see.
What alert investigation involves today
An alert means an account's activity crossed a rule or threshold. The investigator reviews the KYC profile, transactions and prior alerts, checks adverse media and writes up whether the activity fits what the institution knows about the customer.
Most alerts close with no action, but every one has to be worked and documented, so queues grow with the customer base. Examiners notice backlogs and thin rationales first, which makes this one of the clearest places in a bank for AI.
How automated alert investigation works
- 01
Gather the case
The system collects the KYC profile, flagged transactions, account history, related parties and prior alerts from your monitoring, core and case management systems.
- 02
Read the context
Wire details, payment memos and documents on file are read for the facts that matter to the alert's scenario, and adverse media results are judged for relevance.
- 03
Draft the rationale
The activity is compared with the customer's expected behavior and your procedures, and a recommendation to close or escalate is drafted, with every statement linked to its source.
- 04
Draft the narrative
When a case escalates, the SAR narrative is drafted in your format, covering who, what, when, where and why, for the investigator to edit and approve.
- 05
Record the decision
The investigator's decision and edits are written back to the case with the evidence, and they join the evaluation set that measures the system.
Where people stay in the loop
Every decision to close, escalate or file stays with your investigators and BSA officer. Drafts are first tested against your past alerts, and the share accepted without change is tracked from then on.
If you later choose a lighter review for some alert types, it is measured first, agreed with your BSA officer and documented, and it can be switched off at any time.
The systems it works with
The system draws on your monitoring, core, KYC and case management systems and the adverse media sources you already license. It writes findings back to the case and does not change how alerts are raised.
When to build it, and when to buy it
Several specialist vendors now serve AML investigation, from AI agent platforms to managed services that pair software with analysts. If your alert types are standard and a vendor already connects to your systems, one of them is often the right answer.
A custom build makes sense when your procedures or case management setup would force a packaged agent to bend, when you want the evaluation data and decision record under your control, or when alerts are the first of several compliance workflows that should share one foundation.
We hold no reseller agreements, partner quotas or revenue share with any vendor, so a recommendation to buy is made on its merits.
What this work costs you today
A quick way to put a number on the problem before talking to anyone, using your own figures rather than ours.
Enter your volume and the minutes each one takes to see what the work costs in a year.
The numbers stay in your browser and are not stored or sent anywhere. Bring the figure to the first call, since it is the baseline any system should be measured against.
Questions about AML alert investigations
- Does the system decide whether to file a SAR?
- The decision to file, and the content of every filing, stays with your investigators and BSA officer. The system drafts the narrative for the accountable person to edit and approve.
- How does it follow our procedures?
- Your procedures and documentation standards are written into the system's instructions, and each alert type is tested on your past alerts of that type before going live.
- What will an examiner see?
- For each alert, the evidence gathered, the rationale, the investigator who decided and what they changed, which is a fuller and more consistent record than most manual processes produce.
- Can it work alongside our outsourced investigators?
- It can prepare cases for your existing team, in-house or outsourced, which lets you compare throughput and quality before deciding how to staff the queue.
Related systems
A senior team that has done this before
We are a small, entirely senior team with fifty years of combined AI engineering, multiple granted patents and Y Combinator founders, from Yale, MIT, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft and Vista Equity Partners. The people who scope your work are the people who write the code.
Selected work
We built the AI transformation roadmap for a top-50 P&C brokerage, and it is saving the firm millions of dollars in vendor fees it did not need to pay.
Clients include some of the largest banks, RIAs, fintechs and AI labs, as well as a top-3 P&C carrier, a top-10 P&C brokerage, a top-5 trucking brokerage, a leading specialty MGA and a leading trucking MGA.
We run only 3 to 5 engagements at a time, so that every client works directly with the senior team.
About the team- Dozens
- of insurance companies, RIAs, banks and fintechs we have worked with
- 50 yrs
- combined AI engineering experience
- 10+ Patents
- granted to members of the team
- 100%
- of the IP we build is assigned to you
Find out whether this is worth building for your business.
A 30-minute call with an engineer usually shows whether this is worth building. Within a week you will have a free written point of view, including whether a packaged product would serve you better.