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Another Monday morning. Another inbox full of alerts from the weekend. Your compliance analyst opens the first one: a message flagged for "insider tip" - turns out it was a restaurant recommendation.
Next alert: "guaranteed delivery" - an Amazon order confirmation.
By lunchtime, they've cleared 23 messages. Two needed a second look.
This isn't just one bad day. It's the reality for compliance teams across the industry.
What the Data Reveals
Our Mobile Communications Benchmark Report surveyed compliance leaders across financial services to measure the true impact of mobile communications supervision. The numbers are stark.
The average compliance team spends 308 hours per year on mobile communications surveillance. That's almost six hours every week. Fifty-two weeks a year. Nearly two full months of work time.
And the problem is overwhelmingly driven by false positives. 78% of compliance teams face them frequently, with 27% encountering false positives at least once daily and 51% at least once weekly. For 16% of firms, the time burden exceeds 500 hours annually - that's more than one full working day, every single week, consumed by noise rather than real risk.
These aren't just wasted hours. They're missed opportunities to do the work that protects your firm.
What 308 Hours Could Actually Accomplish
Let's get specific about what your team could do with that time back:
Train your entire firm on new regulations. Think comprehensive SEC Marketing Rule guidance, AI compliance policies, or updated off-channel communications protocols. Not a rushed lunch-and-learn, but proper training that sticks.
Conduct thorough vendor due diligence. Evaluate your entire compliance tech stack, properly vet new solutions, and make informed decisions instead of rushing through RFPs because you don't have bandwidth.
Build and test incident response procedures. Don't just have a plan in a drawer somewhere. Run tabletop exercises, identify gaps, and ensure your team knows exactly what to do when something goes wrong.
Develop a mentorship program for junior analysts. Help the next generation of compliance professionals develop the strategic thinking that makes them valuable, rather than having them clear empty alerts all day.
Thoroughly prepare for regulatory exams. Instead of scrambling when the SEC calls, you could conduct mock exams, identify weaknesses proactively, and approach examinations with confidence rather than anxiety.
These are the things CCOs want to do but never have time for. That time is being consumed by false positives.
Intelligent Supervision That Reclaims Your Team's Time
Sentinel dramatically reduces false positives. In practical terms, that means reclaiming hundreds of hours every year.
That's not just time savings. It's the difference between reactive and strategic compliance - a shift that ripples across the entire organization. When false positives aren't overwhelming your team, you can say "yes" to the communication channels your business wants to use - enabling growth while maintaining effective oversight, rather than restricting channels because surveillance is unmanageable.
And because Sentinel uses explainable AI, your team isn't just trusting a black box. They can see exactly why something was flagged or cleared, maintaining the oversight and accountability that regulators expect while eliminating the noise that makes the job miserable.
Ready to give your team their time back? Download our eBook: Don't Just Trust It: The Case for Explainable AI in Compliance for our framework on evaluating AI transparency.
Next in this series: We'll break down the $232,457 financial cost of false positive inefficiencies.
Want to see Sentinel in action now? Request a demo.
