Paula Albu, Junior Editor at The Paypers, shares key takeaways from the webinar co-hosted with NICE Actimize, titled ‘Accelerating Fraud Investigations with Agentic AI’.
Global financial fraud losses reached an estimated USD 442 billion in 2025, according to the INTERPOL Global Financial Fraud Threat Assessment. The pressure on fraud investigation teams has never been greater. Yet as this webinar made clear, the most significant constraint facing those teams is not the sophistication of fraud itself. It is the operational reality of the people trying to investigate it.
Anurag Mohapatra, Director of Fraud Strategy and Product Management at NICE Actimize, and Colin Whitmore, Financial Crime SME and Consultant, joined moderator Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer to examine where agentic AI can genuinely accelerate fraud investigations and where human judgment must remain firmly in control.
The investigation problem is structural, not technological
Drawing on primary research across fraud investigation teams in North America and Europe, Anurag walked attendees through what a fraud investigator's working day actually looks like. The findings were consistent across every institution. Investigators spend the majority of their SLA on work that precedes the decision: navigating fragmented systems, reconciling data manually, and documenting findings by hand. The time available for actual analysis is a fraction of what the SLA appears to allow.
Colin reinforced the point from his own field experience. The challenge is not unique to any single institution or technology stack. The fragmentation is structural, built up over years of adding systems without redesigning the workflow that connects them.
Five friction points. One compounding loop.
Anurag identified five key friction points that surfaced consistently across the research: fragmented data access, institutional knowledge trapped in individuals, queue management disruptions, handoff failures, and rigid processes that override early signal clarity. The more significant finding is how these interact. Each friction point feeds the next, creating a compounding constraint that incremental fixes cannot resolve.
Agentic AI is part of the answer, not all of it
Both speakers were direct about the limits of AI as a solution. Deploying agentic AI before consolidating data and redesigning processes produces faster broken workflows, not better ones. The session offered a practical framework for sequencing investment and a clear-eyed view of which investigation problems genuinely require AI reasoning versus simpler data orchestration or process change.
On the question of human oversight, the session was unambiguous. AI should gather, summarise, and synthesise. Investigators investigate, review, and decide. The goal is to redirect investigator time toward the work that actually requires them, not to remove them from the process.
Governance is not optional
The session closed on governance. Both speakers pushed back on the tendency to treat it as an afterthought. Auditability, explainability, data quality, feedback loops, and AI drift all featured in a practical discussion of what responsible deployment actually requires. Dr. Ruth Wandhöfer added the regulatory dimension: boards are often the last to know about AI usage within their own organisations, and in the context of the EU AI Act, that exposure is real.
This webinar recap only highlights the key points of the discussion. For the full conversation, including deeper insights on fraud investigations, AI implementation, and governance, watch the webinar recording here.
About Paula Albu
Paula Albu has experience in content writing and editing, as well as being a creative storyteller. As a Junior Editor at The Paypers, she investigates Web3 technologies along with the latest trends and regulations in banking and fintech. Paula is committed to turning complex industry topics into engaging, accessible content that resonates with readers and creates a meaningful connection. She is available via LinkedIn or at paula@thepaypers.com.
About NICE Actimize
NICE Actimize is the largest and broadest provider of financial crime, risk, and compliance solutions for regional and global financial institutions and government regulators. Consistently ranked as number one in space, NICE Actimize experts apply innovative technology to protect institutions and safeguard consumers’ and investors’ assets by identifying financial crime, preventing fraud, and providing regulatory compliance. The company provides real-time, cross-channel fraud prevention, anti-money laundering detection, and trading surveillance solutions that address such concerns as payment fraud, cybercrime, sanctions monitoring, market abuse, customer due diligence, and insider trading. Find us at www.niceactimize.com, @NICE_Actimize, or Nasdaq: NICE.
