Slow compliance checks are creating obstacles for investment firms bringing new products to market, according to Red Oak, which provides AI-powered marketing review and content distribution technology.
At the Money Management Institute (MMI) Conference in Boston, Red Oak spoke with sales and marketing professionals who reported that promotional materials can spend several days to a week awaiting approval. This means products can be available to customers before firms have cleared marketing content ready to promote them to prospective clients and distribution partners.
To manage the timing gap, some firms prepare compliant “coming soon” messages in advance or coordinate product launches with the release of marketing materials. Review processes vary across the industry, with some teams relying on email, Outlook and SharePoint to manage approvals. Others use external reviewers, with some reporting delays of a week or more.
The increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate content presents a further challenge for compliance teams. Red Oak said that producing materials more quickly can increase the volume requiring review, putting pressure on approval processes and potentially offsetting the time saved during content creation.
Red Oak’s AI review technology checks marketing materials against individual firms’ internal policies and provides explanations for its findings. The company’s 4U platform distributes approved content to partners and advisers, bringing review and distribution together in one workflow.
The company also pointed to Mira, which converts a firm’s compliance handbook into code and compares internal rules with precedents from the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). It flags deviations as they arise, supporting ongoing monitoring of compliance requirements.
Mira is designed to help address differences between written policies and their implementation in practice. It offers an ongoing monitoring approach alongside the annual compliance programme review required under SEC Rule 206(4)-7.
Red Oak’s findings highlight the pressure on financial firms to ensure their compliance processes can handle rising content volumes as AI becomes more widely used in marketing. Delays in reviewing and distributing materials can limit the benefits of faster content production and leave firms waiting to promote new products.
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
