The business world has enthusiastically taken to artificial intelligence over the past few years, with risk identification and management — a highly data-driven field — being one of the more apt use cases to have developed. MindBridge's platform was developed specifically to capitalize on these advancements by providing an AI-driven solution that analyzes full populations of financial and operational datasets to surface trends and anomalies without the need for categorizing data or training models.
Its founders — Eli Fathi, Solon Angel, and CTO Robin Grosset — were driven by the need to better support finance and accounting professionals by using AI to scrutinize every entry in a ledger and detect anomalies. This innovative approach led to the development of the company's patented platform, which combines risk detection and exposure techniques to build trust in financial data and enable faster decision-making.
To demonstrate its commitment to responsible AI use, MindBridge was the first to undergo the rigorous evaluation methodology of the ICAEW Technology Accreditation Scheme and sign the global Montreal Declaration for a Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence. MindBridge also achieved the world's first comprehensive audit and green status by Holistic AI across the privacy, explainability, robustness, and bias categories. The Toronto-based company has also completed SOC 2 and SOC 3 attestation, as well as the ISO 27001, 27017, and 27018 exams.
CEO Leyton Perris discussed his company in detail with Accounting Today.
How would you best describe what the company does?
Perris: MindBridge is the global leader in financial anomaly detection and risk discovery. Its platform analyzes full populations of financial and operational datasets using AI to identify and surface trends and anomalies without having to spend time on categorizing data or training models, enabling users to make better, more informed decisions with a complete view of their data.
What is in your product line, and what is your flagship product?
Perris: MindBridge's flagship product is its AI-driven financial risk discovery platform, which offers a comprehensive solution for full population testing and financial analysis. It delivers insights much faster than traditional manual methods and is flexible to work within an organization's internal controls or internal audit framework, external audit methodology, or other financial functional process. In addition to the first-of-its-kind general ledger analysis product, MindBridge offers a growing collection of analyses for risk detection in operational and sub-ledger data that can be quickly customized to your specific needs.
What product of yours do you think should be better known among accountants?
Perris: We believe that our AiCFR (for "Artificial Intelligence-enhanced Internal Controls over Financial Reporting") patented technology should be better known among accountants.
MindBridge's AiCFR allows organizations to strengthen ICFR frameworks with AI-powered detective controls activities and monitoring/compliance functions. This helps reduce tedious workloads and obtain faster results. MindBridge analyzes 100% of transactions, giving a full view of data and insights into processes, allowing gaps in preventative controls to be spotted.
Furthermore, AiCFR can be easily integrated into existing frameworks, such as the widely-used COSO integrated internal control framework. By adopting AiCFR, accountants can ensure a more robust control environment, greater risk discovery, more effective controls, more relevant and timely information, and simplified monitoring.
Starting with general ledger analysis, MindBridge's AiCFR technology can be extended to other financial datasets, providing a holistic view of an organization's financial risk landscape.
What was the last big initiative or project your company completed?
Perris: We recently
What is the most exciting new thing you're working on?
Perris: A customer recently implemented our payroll solution. Prior to any customization for their payroll data structure, the customer found anomalies that have real dollars that they can recover due to the nature of the finding. Not only does this recoupment help offset the cost of the tool, but more importantly they are creating a control environment that can "early detect" this issue as well as other, currently unknown issues in the future.
What makes MindBridge different? Unique, even?
Perris: What distinctly sets MindBridge apart is a combination of factors that cater to the unique needs of financial professionals. Our technology is designed to uncover "unknown unknowns," identifying anomalies and risks that traditional methods might miss. This ability to unearth hidden insights is vital in the complex landscape of financial data.
A key differentiator is that MindBridge is built for financial professionals, not data scientists. We've made complex AI technologies accessible and user-friendly, empowering finance and audit teams to leverage AI without needing a background in data science.
Furthermore, our expertise, honed by experience, truly sets us apart. With over 90 billion transactions already scored, MindBridge has a wealth of knowledge and understanding in detecting patterns and anomalies. This depth of experience, gathered over years, is something that would take a long time for others to replicate.
Finally, our solution scales seamlessly across data sets of varying sizes and volumes. No matter the quantity of data, MindBridge can adapt and manage the load without compromising speed or accuracy. This scalability ensures that as the volume of data grows, we can continue to deliver swift, efficient processing and analysis, helping organizations make better decisions and improve their overall financial performance.
What is the biggest challenge facing companies like yours right now? How do you work to address it?
Perris: One of the principal challenges we face at MindBridge is not just fostering trust in AI systems, but demonstrating the tangible value they can bring to the finance and audit sector. We address this challenge head-on, not only through comprehensive external independent assurance over our AI — we were the first audit product to achieve green status by Holistic AI across all categories and have completed SOC 2 and SOC 3 attestations as well as the ISO 27001, 27017, and 27018 exams — but also by delivering real results for our customers.
Our client roster includes some of the most sophisticated organizations globally, and their trust in our solutions and the value we provide them is a testament to our efficacy. As a leader in AI, we maintain our commitment to ongoing compliance, ethical responsibility and, most importantly, driving tangible value and success for our customers and the broader audit and finance community.
What is the biggest tech challenge facing accountants today?
Perris: The biggest tech challenge facing accountants today is effectively utilizing the massive amounts of financial data available to them to identify risks and ensure financial transparency.
What is the biggest challenge with selling to this market? Of being a company whose customers are primarily accountants?
Perris: At MindBridge, we understand the complexity and requirements of professional skepticism and address it by emphasizing trust in our AI technology. We've worked hard to build a platform that's reliable, transparent, user-friendly, and, above all, effective. Further, we have worked with many customers that have had negative experiences with less transparent AI and/or over-promised solutions from external vendors and/or internal teams. This additional skepticism on top of the ethical requirements of professional skepticism means our focus is on demystifying AI for our customers, providing a solution that's not just innovative but also rooted in tangible results and proven value.
MindBridge at a glance
HQ: Ottawa
Founding date: 2015
Number of transactions analyzed: 85 billion
Website: https://www.mindbridge.ai/
This has been part of our regular Vendor Spotlight series. To see previous Vendor Spotlights,
