FIS, the financial services technology provider listed on the New York Stock Exchange, has made its AML Investigations Agent commercially available to every US-based bank, opening access to institutions that do not currently use FIS services.
First revealed alongside Anthropic in May 2026, the agent was developed with input from Anthropic and design partner Amalgamated Bank, where it is now being rolled out.
FIS says this is the first offering of its type from a vendor that already runs the core banking, payments and data systems that financial crime investigations rely on. Controls are built in so that analysts retain authority over every decision.
The firm points to a heavy compliance burden across the sector. According to LexisNexis figures from 2023, US financial institutions spend roughly $35bn to $40bn annually on anti-money laundering work.
AnChain.AI research from 2025 found that analysts spend 40% to 60% of investigation time gathering data before any analysis starts, while Datos Insights put industry false-positive rates at 90% to 95% in 2023. With alert volumes rising, FIS argues the bottleneck lies in manual evidence collection rather than a shortage of analytical skill.
Drawing on Amalgamated’s review of its own workflows and the agent’s anticipated capabilities, the tool is expected to cut Level 1 alert review time by over 90%, Level 2 case investigation time by around 98%, and the time needed to prepare SAR narratives by more than 80%. This would allow investigators to shift their attention towards complex cases demanding deeper judgement.
Rather than handling every alert identically, the agent tailors each investigation to the individual customer. Before compiling evidence, it compares the alert against the customer’s profile, past activity and anticipated behaviour, producing a summary already adjusted to that customer’s norms.
For example, it can separate a seasonal rise in cash deposits from deposits deliberately structured to stay beneath federal reporting limits, or an ordinary overseas payment from an unexplained wire to a high-risk jurisdiction, and it sets out its reasoning for the analyst.
Governance sits at the centre of the design. The agent runs on FIS’ Trust Assured framework, which applies compliance and responsible AI standards across the company’s products. Each output is traceable to the exact record, document or check image it draws on, and every recommendation, its supporting logic and the analyst’s final call are captured in a full audit trail suitable for internal audit or regulatory review.
Through the FIS Control Plane, the governance layer that manages agent access, controls and bank-specific settings, each institution’s risk rules, thresholds and procedures are kept separate.
The tool is intended to complement existing monitoring and case management systems rather than replace them. It integrates natively with FIS Horizon and FIS Systematics, two of the company’s core banking platforms, and FIS IBS is next on the product roadmap.
FIS created and owns the agent, which operates in the company’s private cloud using Anthropic’s Claude models. An Anthropic team worked directly within FIS product and compliance groups, combining their efforts with FIS’ banking relationships, regulatory knowledge and transaction-data infrastructure. The partnership also yielded evaluation frameworks and engineering methods that FIS plans to apply when building further agents on the same governed platform.
FIS head of enterprise fraud and financial crimes Stan Szwalbenest said, “Investigations don’t slow down because analysts lack judgment. They slow down because evidence is scattered across systems and every alert gets treated the same. By bringing together the core, payments and data these investigations rely on, FIS gives analysts a head start while keeping them in control of every decision.”
Amalgamated Bank chief information and operations officer Sean Searby said, “AML investigations require comprehensive evidence and experienced judgment. The FIS AML Investigations Agent can reduce time spent gathering information and preparing documentation, allowing investigators to focus on complex cases and critical decisions. Each recommendation has a clear audit trail, while the investigator remains accountable for the final determination. In regulated environments, AI must strengthen human expertise while preserving trust and governance.”
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
