Denied Party Screening is a critical part of international trade compliance. But for many organizations, the process is plagued by one persistent challenge: false positives. These are alerts that appear to match restricted entities but are in fact benign, leading to unnecessary reviews, wasted time, and delayed shipments.
Enter Descartes Visual ComplianceTM AI Assist, an advanced capability that uses artificial intelligence to help organizations reduce false positives without sacrificing compliance. Here’s how it’s reshaping the way businesses handle denied party screening—and why it’s a game-changer for compliance professionals.
Key Takeaways
- Leverage smart filtering with AI.
- Configure compliance settings to suit your particular risk profile.
- Employ AI automation in collaboration with human oversight.
- Use confidence scores to prioritize analysis work of denied party screening matches.
- Trust solutions providers who adopt an AI development strategy that is cautious, measured, and compliance focused.
- Reduce false positives by up to 60% with Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist.
The False Positive Dilemma
Denied party screening false positives are the unfortunate side effect of casting a wide net. Most companies, especially those with high-risk businesses, low data quality, or large screening volumes, configure their search parameters to be overly inclusive. The result: a flood of alerts, many of which are irrelevant. (See also our recent blog on How to Manage False Positives in Denied Party Screening).
These low-quality matches can overwhelm compliance teams. Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist was designed specifically to reduce the workload for users by reducing the low-quality false positives they need to look at while preserving the integrity of true hits. Here’s how it can enhance productivity, reduce risk, and improve compliance outcomes.
1. Smart Filtering with AI
At the heart of Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist is its ability to intelligently review every alert generated and automatically isolate low-quality false positives. It does this by analyzing match data and applying nuanced decision-making logic—similar to how an experienced human reviewer might distinguish between a real match and a false one.
For example, if your data is inconsistent—misspelled names, incomplete records, or mismatched fields—the solution still applies smart logic to sort through the noise, identifying which alerts are likely false positives without missing the real threats.
2. Tailored to Different Risk Profiles
This isn’t a one-size-fits-all tool. It was built to be flexible enough for use across industries and compliance environments. Whether you’re a high-volume enterprise or a small business owner wearing multiple hats, Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist adapts to your specific needs.
Users can configure thresholds based on their risk tolerance, industry regulations, and operational realities. At the end of the day, organizations are still very much in control of what the system auto-isolates for them.
That balance—between automation and control—is essential. Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist doesn’t just cut down alerts; it does so while ensuring compliance managers remain in the driver’s seat.
3. Ensuring Human Oversight
Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist enhances automation, but never at the expense of human judgment. Every action the AI takes—every denied party screening alert it isolates—is always visible and accessible for review. If a user wants to override an auto-isolated alert or adjust threshold settings, they can do so instantly.
This built-in quality assurance mechanism helps ensure that organizations can trust the system while maintaining oversight. It’s a “human-in-the-loop” approach that balances efficiency with accountability—an essential consideration in trade compliance where the stakes are high.
4. High-Impact Applications for Different Use Cases
Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist has proven its value across the following key use cases.
High-Volume, Low-Quality Data
Companies with large data sets and questionable data quality benefit immensely. Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist reduces the sheer volume of alerts, allowing teams to zero in on those that actually matter. For instance, one customer needed to review 50,000+ denied party screening alerts daily before Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist; that number has since dropped to 20,000–25,000.
Dynamic Screening Burdens
With restricted party lists constantly changing at an accelerated volume and frequency in recent years, many organizations struggle to keep up with dynamic screening alerts. Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist helps by automatically reviewing these frequent changes, reducing daily review loads while keeping organizations fully compliant.
Low-Volume, High-Responsibility Roles
Even in organizations with lower alert volumes, Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist proves valuable—especially for professionals who manage compliance alongside other responsibilities. A small reduction in daily alerts can make a big difference in operational flexibility, productivity and effectiveness.
5. Confidence Scores for Smarter Decisions
Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist doesn’t just filter denied party screening alerts; it also scores them. Each alert is given a confidence rating out of 100, offering users additional insight into why an alert was flagged and how likely it is to be a true match.
This rating system provides context that helps reviewers prioritize their efforts and make more informed decisions. While not the central feature, it adds valuable transparency to the AI’s decision-making process.
6. Cautious and Compliance-Focused AI Strategy
Unlike vendors that rush AI onto the market for the sake of trend-chasing, Descartes has taken a cautious, measured, and compliance-first approach to implementation. Every algorithm is designed and tested with one goal in mind: ensure trade compliance integrity.
In doing so, Descartes wants to make sure it is adopting new technology in a way that makes the system the best it can be, while at the same time focus on compliance accuracy and effectiveness.
That philosophy makes Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist especially attractive to risk-averse industries—like aerospace, defense, or finance—where trade and export compliance failures can have serious consequences. See this article on the Five Challenges in Adopting AI for the Supply Chain penned by Ken Wood, EVP, Product Management at Descartes.
Results That Speak for Themselves
So how much can Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist really reduce false positives? It depends on your alert review setup, which can be configured with the help of customer support. But, in general, customers have reported sharp reductions in the number of false positives, with one seeing a 60% reduction in the restricted party screening alerts they needed to review per day—and that number is climbing as thresholds are further fine-tuned.
The Bigger AI Picture
Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist is just one part of Descartes’ broader AI strategy. Other AI-powered innovations include tools for Harmonized System (HS) classification, global trade data analysis, and beyond. This interconnected suite of solutions means that as trade and trade compliance challenges evolve, so too will the AI-powered tools designed to solve them.
Stay tuned for upcoming blogs exploring these next-gen tools—and how they’re transforming trade compliance workflows across the board in a multitude of industries.
Cut False Positives and Streamline Denied Party Screening with Descartes
Restricted party screening false positives are more than a nuisance—they’re a costly drag on time, accuracy, and compliance performance. Descartes Visual Compliance AI Assist gives organizations a powerful new way to streamline their denied party screening processes while staying in control.
Whether you’re a global enterprise or a smaller business, the solution provides intelligent filtering, flexible control, and human-centered quality assurance—all backed by Descartes’ cautious, compliance-first approach to AI innovation.
Visit VisualCompliance.com to learn how AI can help transform your screening process.
Ready to strengthen your international trade compliance program and protect your business? Request a Demo today and take a closer look at our compliance technology. Find out what our customers are saying about Descartes Denied Party Screening on G2 – an online third-party business software review platform. Additionally, you can read this essential buyer’s guide to denied party screening to help you select a solution that fits your needs.
