Downtown NYC, a sad raining day of March 2017
As I was walking downtown Manhattan on a rainy March day, that also happened to coincide with the 2nd anniversary of MindBridge AI, a sad and chilling reminder of why we started MindBridge stared at me in the face.
Charles Murphy, a Partner that once worked for a Bernie Madoff feeder fund had committed suicide by jumping off the Sofitel in NYC — 9 years after the unravellings had begun. I instantaneously had tears in my eyes.
On a personal side, my family was decimated over two generations by a large case of fraud by an accountant. I was myself the victim of fraud and corruption — twice! One of my first memories was when I was 3 years old and the Brazilian police pointed a rifle at me and my mother as they said to my father “You pay, or they go”.
In the Madoff scheme, $65B was stolen and millions of victims were impacted. Charles Murphy had decided to put an end to his life, leaving a wife and 4 children behind. Over my career, I had seen and helped countless compliance professionals working on many cases, many unheard but as devastating to families and too often human life.
As professionals, we often talk about “accounting errors” and “governance issues” as if it’s just part of the new normal of business, but let’s not forget that financial crimes are real crimes. It’s surging to the point large national databases of financial criminals similar to the sex-offender registry list are being created. There are countless more stories of suicides, depressions, and lives that have been impacted by financial scandals ranging from Madoff to a small business owner that was forced to close his 15-man shop because an employee had gone rogue and he can no longer meet payroll. The lack of trust by individuals towards corporations and governments has become a sad reality and a reflection of how low we have fallen as a civil society.
In an era of alternative facts, fake news, inflated books and huge amounts of data, we decided that AI is needed as humans alone can not check all the facts. A recent article from Harvard Business Review suggested that professionals have “failed” and technology will take over their job. We believe that it is not that simple. Corporations and governments are acting within a specific regulatory framework and if that framework is obsolete, who should we blame? Let’s not forget that Rome did not fall because it had bad armies, or suffered from a poor economy. It fell because of corruption by all individuals at various levels of its civil society.
All members of the MindBridge AI team are driven by making the world a better place. From our CEO, who in addition to being a successful serial entrepreneur, has led the largest corporate responsibility conference in North America, all the way through to our data scientist, development, marketing, sales and administrative teams, we stand for the world being fixed.(just looks more positive) We firmly believe that Artificial Intelligence will augment human cognitive capabilities to compensate for the increasing demands placed on professionals.
Two years after starting MindBridge AI, we have spent countless hours with executives, accountants, bankers, lawyers and fraud fighters and there is still so much work ahead to make a positive societal impact. What we did not anticipate is that containing fraud and restoring trust is just the beginning of increase in productivity and the key to unlocking substantial value for our customers. Fraud is often the canary in the coal mine. If you have a case of fraud, it is typically foreshadowed by breakdowns in process and management. Fraud is often enabled by circumstances relating to management issues, poor system controls, a toxic culture and inadequate hiring practices. By unleashing an AI expert system that is capable of detecting 80% to 170% more issues in data than existing methods and softwares, our customers led us down a path to introduce solutions that were beyond our original direction. World class partners have said that the MindBridge AI platform goes “well beyond the capabilities of any data analytics technology we’ve seen”. One of our coolest projects (so far!) was associated with MindBridge’s acceptance into the Bank of England FinTech program.
The analytic capabilities of countless finance professionals are severely limited, and by default, they have been forced to use aging tools. Today’s professionals spend countless hours in visualization, data acquisition and analytics softwares that creates more work and generates analyst fatigue. MindBridge’s goal is to invert this trend, and have the computing work for the humans, not the other way around
This is why MindBridge introduced the world’s first commercial AI Auditor at the end of 2016. We wanted to provide professionals with an easy way to perform their financial data analysis more efficiently, with higher assurance and in a consistent, reliable, unbiased manner by harnessing the power of artificial intelligence. By doing so, we can minimize the risk of financial loss, and ultimately restore trust in corporations and governments — and help prevent the tragic impacts of fraud that society has experienced. The market so reaction has been fantastic, we are being featured by various press outlets in Europe and North America, partnered with existing software providers and I am filled with confidence that it’s a matter of time before we see the benefits of this technology on a very large scale.
See the links below for the news coverage following the announcement of a recent round of funding:
Bank Of England and MindBridge Ai Collaboration
Globe and Mail Feature, 16 June 2017
You are responsible to ensure financial statements are free from material misstatement — whether caused by fraud or error. Organizations of all sizes can now harness the capability and added assurance of applying the Ai Auditor to its internal controls. Equally important, we review 100% of your transactions, Your auditor just samples 3% of them.
You achieve a consistent, efficient and focused review. We also provide the tool to auditors.
We’d love an opportunity to show you the value we can bring to your organization:
- For Internal Audit — Use the same or more powerful tool as your auditor.
- For Business — Find and correct anomalies before your auditor finds them.
- For Audit Firms — Use the most powerful tool to guide your audit to the highest risk areas.
- For M & A Firms and Investment Bankers — Anomalies in financial transactions and GLs tell a lot about a company’s character.
Financial Health Check-Up
Our financial health check-up looks at 100% of your general ledger transactions and finds the anomalies. You can rest assured that you’re not going to get any surprises. We provide a risk-based ranking of the anomalies. This saves you time and money whether you are investigating past activities, detecting active inadmissible behaviour or preventing potential transgressions. All preserve your good reputation.
Internal Audit Service
Two-thirds of CEOs see more threats to their business than opportunities. We focus on your biggest risks. Today, you face an unprecedented confluence of risks. Risk mitigation through internal audit services is your front line defense. Stay competitive pursue parallel risk strategies: resiliency and agility.
Municipal Fraud Prevention
Budgets are squeezed as never before. Society’s tolerance of government corruption is at an all-time low. Municipal fraud is a frequent reality. Fraud can occur in any municipality, often by well-respected employees who have worked in the municipality for a long time. Prevention is the best defense to avoid having a similar story in your community.
