AiThority Interview with Tim Morss, CEO at SpeakUp

Tim Morss, CEO at SpeakUp shares a few thoughts on the future of AI and compliance management in this AiThority.com interview:

_______

Hi Tim, tell us about your time in tech and your role at SpeakUp

I’ve worked in technology since 2010, with most of that time being in the ethics and compliance space, which is the space where SpeakUp operates. Since 2010, I’ve worn many different hats ranging from running commercial organizations, product and development teams, and now as the CEO of Speak Up.

When I first joined the sector, compliance was largely focused on checking a box, and it was all about ensuring being compliant with various regulations. It’s evolved dramatically since then. It’s now more about doing what’s right and really thinking about becoming one of the most ethical companies out there. As newer generations enter the workforce, there’s just much more awareness of compliance being able to support the business and defending it from reputational risk.

We’d love a brief overview of SpeakUp’s latest AI enhancements.

SpeakUp has been a front‑runner in applying AI to the compliance space. We introduced early AI capabilities such as automated translation and PII anonymization, and we recently added features for drafting summaries and assisting with triage. That means wherever logical, the AI is deeply embedded into our system.

Our latest release is an agentic solution for voice callers. Tasks once handled by costly call centers, with language barriers and interpreter delays, are now managed by a conversational and multilingual AI agent that immediately answers calls, asks follow‑up questions, and delivers both a full transcript and a summary in the caller’s language to the case manager. It can even prompt for additional information to make the report actionable, making it a true game‑changer for the industry.

Read More on AiThority: How GenAI Is Reviving the “Shift Left” Movement in Data Engineering

How will AI‑powered disclosure and approval management systems change the game for compliance teams in the future?

Disclosure and approval management has two sides: the employee making the disclosure and the compliance team reviewing it.

From the employee reporter perspective, AI can interpret the report, choose the correct channel, and streamline the workflow, eliminating the need to wade through dense policies or complete long form, ultimately reducing the barriers to reporting.

From the compliance team perspective, AI is about adding scalability and efficiency.
AI offers these teams workflows which enable them to capture submissions like gifting or a conflict of interest in one system, analyze the data, map each case to policy and precedent, giving compliance managers clear insights and helping them make faster, more consistent decisions. AI also makes it easier for compliance team to build a wide range of customized paths, tailored to the need of the company, enabling them to become more proactive.

For the business, this means that when people are open to reporting misconduct or submitting disclosures, risks to the business can be surfaced and managing effectively.

As AI becomes more commonly used in compliance and related business fields, what tips and best practices would you share with these teams in terms of customer, data protection and AI deployment gold standards?

First, avoid dropping data into generic ChatGPT instances. Use fit‑for‑purpose tools designed for compliance, so outputs are deterministic and accurate. In our field, a single hallucination or breach can’t be tolerated.

Second, embed privacy by design. For example, our Sienna AI scrambles the caller’s voice in the call recording, so the original message is preserved while the individual’s identity is protected. This is an important safeguard that only AI can offer in a scalable manner.

What training formalities should become more mainstream to compliance teams as the use of AI in these departments increases?

I think, like all departments and domains today, compliance teams will need broad AI literacy first. AI is changing the way we work so fast that organizations not looking into AI powered tooling nowt, are already late.

Also, given the confidential nature of industry and how regulators are intensifying scrutiny of how businesses use AI, compliance officers should pursue training on responsible‑use frameworks, bias awareness, and privacy laws so their organizations can govern internal AI decision‑making responsibly.

A few thoughts on the future of AI and compliance management?

I think that in the future AI will sit at the center of compliance platforms, reshaping systems and interface design. Like in every department, the pace of AI adoption is not slowing down, and it will continue to change ways of working and operating practices. It will also transform traditional administrative roles into more strategic ones, as compliance officers will have more time to make an overall impact in the company and solve root causes for compliance issues structurally.

We’ll migrate away from endless button‑clicking toward natural‑language interactions users can ask questions, and the system not only responds but also executes actions and connects to other tools. Over time, use cases that feel uncomfortable today will become widely accepted as AI continues to push the envelope and integrate more deeply into daily compliance work.

We’ve developed our AI Voice Agent with this core idea that if you remove the hurdles to reporting and make the process more intuitive, then people will feel more comfortable doing so.

Catch more AiThority Insights: AiThority Interview with Pete Foley, CEO of ModelOp

[To share your insights with us, please write to psen@itechseries.com ]