Google Workspace brings cutting-edge AI to regulated finance

Financial institutions face a high-stakes challenge: how to adopt modern AI while adhering to strict compliance standards. Too often, the latest AI tools offer rich features but promise compliance “later,” failing to integrate with critical providers in the industry.

Today, Google Workspace is bridging that gap with new integrations in regulated finance, enabling institutions to adopt Gemini with uncompromised confidence, security, and compliance.

Using Gemini in finance workflows

Some of the world’s most important financial work already happens in Workspace. This work goes far beyond spreadsheets, as professionals frequently:

• Discuss trades and opportunities in Gmail (now with “Help me write” and AI inbox).
• Speak with colleagues and clients in Google Meet (now with “Take notes for me”).
• Visualize data in Google Sheets (now with interactive features via Gemini canvas).
• Document important research in Google Docs and Google Slides (now with AI summaries and Slide generation).

Brokerage firms and investors see two massive opportunities. First, Gemini in Workspace can accelerate tasks, delivering results in seconds instead of months (imagine transcribing thousands of hours of financial calls). Second, Gemini in Workspace can improve the quality of work. Gartner found that one-third of accountants make several financial errors per week. The embedded AI capabilities in Workspace can catch these errors and help employees raise the quality bar.

FINRA-compliant archiving

In order to meet compliance standards in the U.S. (FINRA) and more than a dozen other regions, financial institutions must archive many of their records. This requirement applies to all of the financial use cases described above. Many emails, chat messages, and other communications (for monitored users) must be archived.

Last year, we announced our intention to integrate with three leading providers in this space. Each provider goes far beyond archiving by intelligently enriching your data and communications. We’re excited to share that our integrations with these providers (Smarsh, Global Relay, and Mimecast) are now live. Across Google Chat, Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and Meet, the flow is simple:

This is transformative for any company that has slowed its AI adoption to preserve compliance. From Kamesh Tumsi, Chief Product Officer at Smarsh:

"As financial institutions accelerate their adoption of generative AI, establishing robust, real-time compliance safeguards is essential. Our joint integration with Google Workspace allows global institutions to unlock full collaborative power and meet the most rigorous SEC, FINRA, and global supervision requirements without disrupting how teams work."

If you already use Smarsh, Global Relay, or Mimecast, you can now configure exports directly to your platform of choice, reaping the benefits of Gemini in Workspace and ensuring compliance.

Our integrations utilize the following critical technologies:

1. SMTP journaling

This is the gold standard for regulatory exports. We capture messages in real time (synchronously) as they pass through our servers, guaranteeing an immediate record rather than a periodic capture of messages. SMTP journaling also provides full envelope visibility. This means all recipients, including those who are in the BCC field, are properly included in the export. Other approaches are not as thorough.

Our implementation uses a store-and-forward protocol, helping to guarantee no message is lost (even in the event of an outage or scheduled maintenance). We hold failed messages in an encrypted retry queue, waiting to clear them until delivery is complete. Modern regulatory standards expect safeguards like this.

Many leading financial platforms have already adopted FINRA-compliant exports. Compliance managers, working in different geographies and with a diverse set of clients, tell us these exports have also made archiving more efficient. In one case, updates to SMTP journaling helped a customer prevent a nearly $500,000/year storage cost increase.

Since SMTP journaling is message-based, this method is used for exports from Gmail, Chat, and Calendar.

2. Direct exports

Any record that is not an email, chat, or calendar invite is treated differently (because it is not sent in a traditional message format). In Workspace, this primarily refers to calls in Meet and files in Drive.

Let’s start with calls: Workspace can export your call recordings, transcripts, and metadata directly to a Cloud Storage bucket. Beginning today, Smarsh, Global Relay, and Mimecast offer integrations to archive these calls.

Now, for files: Through our integration with AODocs, organizations can identify monitored users and export their files to WORM (write once, read many) storage. Our partners have launched full support for files and can now integrate directly via Cloud Storage:

Getting started with Assured Controls

We can’t wait to see what financial institutions do with Gemini in Workspace. As we launch new AI features, our team continues to prioritize compliance so no organization is left behind.

FINRA-compliant exports are available with the Assured Controls add-on for Workspace. This add-on provides access to a number of other critical data governance features, further safeguarding financial data for you and your users.