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As we wrap up 2024, it’s a good time to pause and reflect on the year’s biggest developments in regulatory compliance technology. From advancements in AI to shifts in political priorities following the U.S. election, it’s been a year of progress and change. At Regology, we’ve been working closely with customers to adapt to these changes, improving the tools they rely on to simplify compliance work.
Looking ahead to 2025, we see even more opportunities for businesses to build smarter, more efficient ways to manage regulatory change. Here’s what stood out in 2024, and what we’re watching closely for the year to come.
The 2024 U.S. election brought a renewed focus on deregulation, particularly in areas like finance, energy, and antitrust enforcement. Financial institutions are expecting some regulations to be relaxed, which could open the door to more mergers and acquisitions. In the energy sector, the focus on speeding up permits for large-scale projects will likely drive rapid infrastructure development. And in antitrust policy, a more lenient stance could encourage industry consolidation.
The start of the 119th term of the U.S. Congress in January 2025 is also expected to play a pivotal role. With the new administration’s priorities and Congress aligned, legislative initiatives could formalize deregulation efforts or introduce significant reforms.
For compliance teams, this creates a mixed bag: fewer regulations in some areas but a lot of uncertainty about how long these policies will last. While deregulation can reduce immediate burdens, it is rarely straightforward as teams should carefully consider the extent by which it can terminate its controls and policies for potential ties to other regulations. Policies change, and new risks often emerge as oversight loosens. Teams will need to stay vigilant not just for regulatory updates, but for potential shifts in the laws that the regulators enforce. Regology’s tools can help simplify this by tracking updates relevant to individual organizations and highlighting the relevant changes to individual teams allowing them to hone in on policy and control reviews much faster and more efficiently.
2024 was the year generative AI stopped being a buzzword and became a practical reality for compliance teams. It became clearer that these tools aren’t about replacing experts—they’re about freeing them up to focus on decisions that need human judgment. Regology customers have been using generative AI to handle tasks like summarizing new regulations, identifying what’s relevant, and even drafting compliance policies and controls. For example, instead of spending hours sorting through dense regulatory text, teams can now get clear, AI-generated summaries and then dig into the most critical details. By taking the heavy lifting off their teams, businesses saved time, reduced errors, and freed up experts to focus on decisions that matter most.
The time savings are significant, and the accuracy of our tools is there—more than 95% accuracy, in fact. With more proof in the pudding, we expect to see more compliance teams rely on generative AI to simplify the most manual parts of their work.
See how one of our customers is using generative AI
In 2025, Generative AI in compliance is expected to move from the “Innovators” phase into the “Early Adopters” phase of the technology adoption curve. This means that more companies start noticing how early innovators are getting so much more done with AI—faster and more effectively—and decide it’s time to jump in too.
This shift marks the start of broader adoption, where early adopters begin to integrate AI into their compliance workflows, boosting efficiency and freeing up time for more strategic tasks. It’s an exciting phase because it often sets the stage for even faster adoption as others see the results and follow suit.
You can take a look at the visual of the curve here.
2024 introduced us to the real value of Small Language Models (SLMs). While the big AI models get most of the headlines, SLMs—which are smaller, more focused AI models—are proving to be just as effective for specific tasks.
SLMs are easier to manage, more cost-effective, and can be run on internal systems, which gives businesses and SaaS providers more control over their data. In 2024, we saw them successfully applied in compliance work like summarization, relevancy checks, and Q&A. Looking to 2025, we’ll see wider adoption as businesses realize they don’t always need a massive AI model—sometimes, smaller and more focused is better. For compliance teams, this means more affordable and flexible AI tools that are tailored to their needs.
This year, agentic workflows—where AI handles routine tasks and humans oversee and refine the results—are starting to help businesses work smarter. Tasks like mapping regulatory changes to controls are becoming faster and more accurate, thanks to AI, while compliance experts stay in control of key decisions.
Early adopters have seen impressive results, and it’s clear this way of working is here to stay. As regulations continue to change quickly, agentic workflows will help businesses keep up without sacrificing quality or precision.
At Regology, everything we build starts with our customers’ challenges. In 2024, we focused on delivering practical AI tools to help teams get their work done faster and with fewer headaches:
We’re always listening to our customers, and we’ll keep improving these tools to make compliance simpler and more effective in 2025.
Imagine having a smart assistant who can do the repetitive parts of your job, like sorting through new regulations or matching updates to internal policies, but still leaves the final decisions up to you. That’s what agentic workflows do. AI handles the heavy lifting, while humans review, refine, and approve the outputs.
For compliance teams, this means:
In 2025, we expect agentic workflows to become a standard way of working for compliance teams. It’s not about replacing people—it’s about letting them focus on what they do best while AI handles the rest.
Transparency will be a major priority in 2025, and Chain of Thought (CoT) reasoning will help businesses get there. CoT breaks down the reasoning behind AI-generated outputs, making it easier to understand, trace, and trust the results.
This kind of transparency is especially important during times of political change, where businesses may need to defend decisions or pivot quickly as regulations shift. CoT will provide the clarity and confidence compliance teams need.
We expect to see more businesses adopting Small Language Models (SLMs) in 2025. These models offer a cost-effective, flexible way to bring AI in-house, making it easier to tailor solutions to specific needs. For compliance teams looking to make the most of their budgets while still leveraging AI, SLMs will be a smart choice.
2024 showed us just how much potential there is for AI in compliance work. From generative AI to agentic workflows, businesses made big strides this year, and we’re excited to see that momentum carry into 2025. At the same time, the political shifts following the U.S. election are a reminder that compliance work never stands still.
As we head into the new year, businesses will need tools that help them adapt quickly, stay accurate, and remain confident in their compliance decisions. At Regology, we’re ready to help.
Let’s Make 2025 a Year of Better Compliance.
If you’d like to see how Regology’s tools can support your team, let’s connect.
