Meet the maker: Aoife May on AI, regulatory agility, and the future of compliance

Aoife May, Market Strategist at Wolters Kluwer and architect of Compliance Intelligence, combines a decade of regulatory technology expertise with a passion for operationalizing compliance. A former solution consultant turned compliance technology innovator, she specializes in designing market- leading solutions for financial services compliance teams. We explore her vision for AI-driven compliance in an era where institutions face unprecedented complexity across state and federal regulatory perimeters.

Q: How does Compliance Intelligence balance AI automation with human expertise?
May: "AI isn’t here to replace judgment-it’s here to amplify it. While Wolters Kluwer solutions automate manual regulatory tracking, compliance teams remain the strategic interpreters. For example, when a new federal regulation drops, Compliance Intelligence delivers AI-curated summaries and tagging, meaning impact assessments take minutes not hours, But deciding how to implement those changes-whether through policy updates, additional controls or employee training-requires human nuance. It’s about letting machines handle the ‘what’ so experts can focus on the ‘why’."

Q: With 15,000+ annual regulatory updates, how do you help banks avoid overload?
May: "The key is intelligent prioritization. Our AI doesn’t just flag changes-it maps them to any of your banks impacted obligations, it also tags them against specific topics, products and processes . The key is to focus on what matters.

For example, if you don’t offer a product in a specific state we can suppress that from your list, and prioritize items tagged against your core business, or items introducing new potentially applicable requirements. This reduces noise compared to legacy systems, letting teams concentrate on high-impact risks."

Q: Wolters Kluwer emphasizes ‘trusted content.’ Why does that matter in the AI era?
May: "Anyone can scrape regulations, but what value can a vendor add to that content. Compliance Intelligence embeds 40+ years of Wolters Kluwer’s regulatory expertise, validated by our in-house SMEs. Over 50% of Wolters Kluwer’s digital revenues use some form of AI. The future of AI is really about trust, with a legacy of deep domain expertise and cutting-edge technology, we’re positioning ourselves to be the most trusted vendor in the market.

Q: What’s next for Compliance Intelligence in 2025?
May: "We’re launching a holistic regulatory change and obligation management platform, an eco-system that is truly singular that connects the dots from regulatory alert, directly to customer obligation. Imagine instantly understanding if a 700 page rule amendment has any impact on your current obligations. This isn’t hypothetical, users have significantly reduced time spent on analysis and compliance-related errors while accelerating decisioning. By 2026, we aim to further layer risk framework mappings and cut manual review processes across compliance programs further."

Q: How should smaller institutions approach AI adoption?
May: "Start with pain points. If tracking state and federal regulatory overlaps consumes 200+ hours annually, automate that first. The goal isn’t to ‘boil the ocean’ but to free teams for high-value work like customer trust initiatives."

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