By PAUL O’DONOGHUE, Senior Correspondent
FIS is working with Anthropic to launch a Financial Crimes AI Agent for AML investigations.
The companies said the new “Financial Crimes AI Agent” can reduce investigations from hours to minutes. The system automatically gathers evidence across banking systems, checks activity against known money laundering typologies and highlights higher-risk cases for review.
“BMO and Amalgamated Bank will be among the first institutions to deploy the agent, with broader availability planned for H2 2026,” FIS said in a statement.
The company said Anthropic has embedded its Applied AI team and forward-deployed engineers within the company. The firm is helping FIS design the platform and develop future AI agents.
The initiative combines FIS’s banking infrastructure, transaction data and compliance systems with Anthropic’s Claude AI models. FIS said client data will remain inside infrastructure controlled by the company.
Anthropic and FIS
Jonathan Pelosi, the Head of Financial Services at Anthropic, said FIS selected Claude because the model could “reason through complex investigations accurately, explain its work, and operate safely inside regulated workflows”.
He added that Anthropic worked closely with FIS so “every conclusion the agent reaches links back to its source data, and every decision stays with the investigator.”
Stephanie Ferris, FIS CEO and President, said banks increasingly want AI systems that can take actions independently.
“The Financial Crimes AI Agent is the first proof of what this architecture can deliver for financial institutions. [Those] that are ready to become the agent-first bank of the future. It’s a new era in banking,” she said.
FIS said the project forms part of a broader strategy to build AI agents for regulated banking operations. The company said it would provide governance, infrastructure and deployment systems, while Anthropic would supply the AI reasoning technology.
The platform will use FIS’s “Orchestrated Intelligence” system to manage data, governance and AI deployment across banking environments.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article
If you would like unlimited access to AML Intelligence premium articles, newsletter delivered twice a week, access to our Global Bank Fines and Penalties database, free access to Boardroom Series events and much more, select one of our subscription options and become a subscriber!
