Accelerating Investigations with AI

“Never trust; always verify.” This was a central theme of the breakout session Monday morning at the 37th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference led by Lyn Cameron, CFE, LLB, and Kaoibha Merrick. The two investigators at Microsoft demonstrated ways that fraud examiners can use artificial intelligence (AI) agents to streamline their investigations and improve human innovation.  

Cameron and Merrick walked session attendees through the 10 stages of a fraud examiner’s investigation, from initial intake and scoping to interview prep, report writing and stakeholder communications. They used different AI agents, including Microsoft’s Copilot Cowork, to show examples of reports they can generate and searches they can conduct. They discussed ways fraud examiners can fine-tune a report that AI generates to match a preferred style and voice.  

They explained that AI agents can help fraud examiners save time and energy. Instead of focusing on repetitive, and often boring, administrative work, such as manually formatting and styling information into a particular layout, fraud examiners can choose preferred templates for AI agents to style the information in, allowing them to focus more on innovative work and storytelling. Follow-up reports that used to take several days to complete can now be generated immediately, with corrections and input from the fraud examiner to ensure the report contains everything they need. “The opportunities and options are truly endless,” said Merrick. 

A concern for many fraud examiners is protecting sensitive information, especially when using a public AI agent. Cameron explained that for her team, any evidence they use with the AI agents is a duplicate of the original, which is securely stored. She said they also incorporate processes to check their own personal computer systems to ensure they don’t contain sensitive case information and refer to their attorneys to follow necessary standards. 

As Cameron asserted, it’s important for any fraud examiner using AI to verify any information the AI agent generates. It’s also crucial to avoid using the tool for anything a fraud examiner doesn’t know how to do themselves. “You have to understand how processes work and be able to do it manually,” said Merrick. She and Cameron emphasized that AI agents don’t replace human intelligence; used properly, they can accelerate the speed at which tedious tasks are completed so that human innovation can lead a fraud examiner’s investigative work.