INC.: These Companies Leverage AI To Disrupt Background Checks

Yes, AI is big part of it.

The rise of AI & machine learning have deeply impacted the way we conduct global business and operations.

Industries from HR to medical imaging to delivery services are leveraging the technologies to improve efficiencies and their respective bottom lines. We are now beginning to see the impact that these technologies can have on the background check industry, creating a wave of change in a traditionally conservative sector.

Over the last 50 years, background checks haven’t changed much, still using significant numbers of employees to manually comb through an individual’s background. The traditional players have typically been investigative firms with large budgets and wide scope.

However, gone are the days in which investigation companies have to go through phone records or paper court documents. Large amounts of information today are digitized, with the amount of digital information increasing tenfold every five years. According to Cisco, internet traffic is estimated to reach 278 exabytes (EB) per month by 2021, 1 Exabyte is the equivalent of 10 billion copies of The Economist.

The traditional background check companies are not equipped to cope with the new reality presented by the digitization of large amounts of information, which allows for new methods of research and investigation.

Only through technological innovation will companies have the ability to capture all this data. Old processes will need to be automated in order to optimize data collection, analysis and workflow to handle the overload of data.

What we are starting to see is the adaptation of background checks to the digital world, especially in the financial, employment and corporate worlds. Ranging from pre-hiring checks to pre-investment due diligence – where the stakes are high and consequences of corruption and falsehood could result in court dates. AI and machine learning are changing the way background checks are conducted.

These five “21st Century” data-focused background check companies are poised to make a huge impact in 2018.

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