Most compliance teams have some version of a notification system for regulatory updates. But organizations still struggle to operationalize those updates effectively and in a timely fashion. Clearly, knowing about a change and having the systems in place to act on it are two different challenges.
Operationalization is where the process breaks down
In our 2026 RegTech Benchmark Survey , we asked respondents to rank the most difficult elements of regulatory change management.
- For EMEA respondents, operationalizing changes in the business ranked as the single most difficult step
- For the combined segment of Tier 1 banks, regional banks, and FinTechs, monitoring and operationalizing were tied as the most difficult elements
- Among senior executives, operationalization and execution speed ranked highest. Clearly this concerns leadership since failure to operationalize in a timely manner leaves the organization wide open to the risk of non-compliance
The gap between alert and action
The challenge lies between being alerted of a regulatory change and making the policy, procedural, and control updates required to maintain compliance. For most organizations, the road from alert to operationalization is filled with inefficient and error-prone manual work:
- Reviewing regulatory text to understand what changed
- Determining the applicability of those changes to identify impacted requirements and obligations
- Identifying the specific text changes within each requirement or obligation
- Notifying policy and control owners of the impact and the details, often by email
- Updating policies and controls impacted by the requirement or obligation change
The reality is that manual processes and/or document-based datafeeds make execution arduous, slow, and risky.
What AI-fueled operationalization looks like
AI can be a huge accelerator for compliance teams. Not ChatGPT or CoPilot or any other AI tool that seem to launch every week. It should be AI that’s purpose-built for regulatory change management, specifically trained on regulatory data sourced from the regulators themselves, and quality assured by lawyers and regulatory experts for accuracy.
When a regulatory change is detected, AscentFocus isolates and extracts the specific obligations (the actions you must take to remain compliant) under the updated rule and compares them against your current obligations. It eliminates the need for manual applicability assessment that slows down regulatory change execution speed. It does this for every impacted obligation, and you get an auto-generated, plain-language summary describing the changes. In addition, it provides highlighted side by side changes of current and new text, so users know exactly what the change is that may require remediation.
When integrated with your GRC system AscentFocus automatically notifies policy and control owners of obligation updates that affect their areas of responsibility. Every change is automatically logged to provide defensible proof of compliance during internal and external examinations.
With this level of automation, processes that previously required days of manual review and multi-team coordination occur in minutes, with complete traceability and zero gaps.
Next Steps:
1 – Download the full Benchmark Report
2 – Download our eBook with more information on our solutions and differentiated, more powerful approach to obligation-based regulatory change management.
3 – AscentAI has developed a short self-assessment scorecard focused on regulatory change management. You canread more about it and download the quiz (no email required – we promise!).
If you have additional questions or would like to learn more about our solutions Contact Us.
