Warrant Featured in Grep Beat for AI-Powered Compliance Innovation

Entrepreneur Austin Carroll spent years working in marketing, where she would have to jump through hoops to get her projects approved by legal and compliance teams. 

“It was an extremely difficult process, because you would create this amazing campaign, and then weeks later, we get a response saying that you can’t use any of the graphics that you created,” Carroll said.

Last July, Carroll launched Warrant, an AI agent for marketing compliance. Warrant gives marketing teams instant feedback, reducing frustration and creating a more streamlined process. 

Users can upload their projects to Warrant’s platform and receive an immediate compliance check. For example, a marketer can upload their billboard design, and the AI agent will review it against federal, state and platform regulations to ensure it can be used as is.

A marketing team can also train the AI agent to understand the brand guidelines, as regards items such as colors, logo and font. Warrant will report any federal or state regulation breaches, and once a project is approved, the records are stored within the platform.

How Warrant sets itself apart

Carroll said Warrant operates like a junior compliance officer, in that a user can ask the AI agent compliance questions as they progress.

Through that kind of continued conversation, Warrant’s AI suggestions are able to pull from what the team has approved in the past. Carroll said this helps marketers take risks, rather than playing it safe to avoid regulation breaches.

Carroll said competitors in the market will generally pull from chatGPT, rather than tailoring suggestions to a company’s brand history.

“[With Warrant, the interaction] gets better over time, versus something that is akin to a digital file cabinet,” Carroll said.

As a B2B company, Warrant sells to federally regulated companies including broker dealers, fintech startups, and real estate companies. Warrant’s market is comprised of legal teams, compliance teams and marketing teams at these companies.

Carroll said that in her previous position at Mercury, a neobank for startups, she could have used Warrant to help correct her team’s mistakes. She said there is not a lot of transparency about federal regulations in that space.

“If we would have had Warrant back then, we probably wouldn’t have ever gotten into the trouble that we did get into,” she said.

Warrant’s work amidst shifting government policies

Carroll noted that regulations can change from one year to the next—especially when a presidential administration changes, as it has this year. With Warrant, Carroll described the AI agent as “an ear to the ground,” whereby the AI agent is being fed new memos, sanctions and news articles to keep up with the latest regulations.

Companies can toggle certain regulations on or off depending on their business preferences. For instance, Carroll said that Warrant has an option to eliminate DEI language per Trump’s policies, though she noted that she strongly advises people to continue to use DEI language.

“I just really do believe that our financial system needs to reflect the people that it serves,” she said.

In addition to instating DEI language restrictions, the Trump administration has also dismantled the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is the largest federal regulator of financial products in the country. Carroll said this has caused “a huge question mark” in terms of how states may take on the burden of regulations, which would also cause complications for companies once different states create different rules.

Warrant has a newsletter with almost 1,000 subscribers, helping the startup to keep users updated on changes and new regulations like these.

“There’s never been a better time for our clients, because things are changing daily, and we really just don’t know what’s going to happen,” Carroll said.

QUICK BITS
Startup: Warrant
Founder: Austin Carroll (CEO)
Founded: 2024
Team size: 7
Location: Durham
Website: www.hellowarrant.com
Funding: Pre-seed ($720K)

In April, Warrant raised $720K in pre-seed funding. Carroll also participated in the startup incubator TechStars last fall.

In the next several months, Warrant will launch in the United Kingdom, and later in the European Union once the platform is built for multiple languages. 

Head on to Grep Beat for the full article.