Financial crime investigators have historically fought the same criminal networks using fragmented tools, separate data systems, and disconnected teams. Sardine, a fintech AI company, has been named a Leader in Forrester's Financial Crime Management Solutions report for Q3 2026, earning the highest possible scores for its approach to unifying fraud detection and anti-money laundering (AML) operations through AI agents that work across integrated data.

Why Are Fraud and AML Teams Still Working in Silos?

Fraud, identity theft, AML violations, scams, mule activity, account takeovers, payment risk, and merchant risk often emerge from the same underlying criminal behavior. Yet most organizations manage these threats across separate systems, data repositories, and teams, creating blind spots and inefficiencies. This fragmentation means investigators miss connections that could reveal larger fraud rings or money laundering networks operating across multiple channels.

Sardine's platform addresses this problem by bringing together identity, device, behavioral, transaction, and network intelligence in a single foundation. AI agents then work across that unified data to investigate patterns, surface anomalies, improve controls, and automate repetitive operational work. The Forrester evaluation highlighted Sardine's rules-based risk scoring as "remarkable," along with strong performance in transaction type support, queue and case management, and regulatory and operational reporting.

How Can AI Agents Improve Financial Crime Investigations?

• Automating Repetitive Tasks: AI agents can handle routine work around sanctions screening and transaction monitoring reviews, freeing investigators to focus on complex decisions that require human judgment and accountability.
• Acting as Intelligent Copilots: The agents can write SQL queries, perform deep data science analysis, and help investigators uncover fraud rings by identifying hidden connections across networks and datasets.
• Improving Detection and Controls: By analyzing patterns across unified data, AI agents can identify anomalies and connections that might be missed by fragmented systems, helping teams improve their risk controls over time.

"Fraud and AML teams are fighting the same underlying fincrime networks, but historically they have been asked to do it with fragmented data, tools, and workflows. We believe the next generation of financial crime management brings that intelligence together and gives investigators AI agents that can automate repetitive work around sanctions and transaction monitoring reviews," said Soups Ranjan, CEO and Co-Founder of Sardine.

Soups Ranjan, CEO and Co-Founder of Sardine

The key insight in Sardine's approach is that AI agents don't replace human investigators; they augment them. Humans remain responsible for decisions that require context, judgment, and accountability, while AI handles the data-heavy lifting. This division of labor allows investigators to work more efficiently and catch patterns that would be nearly impossible to spot manually across fragmented systems.

What Does This Mean for Financial Institutions?

Sardine's recognition as a Forrester Leader reflects a broader industry shift toward integrated financial crime management. The company serves more than 450 global enterprises across banking, fintech, wealth and retirement, HR and payroll, payments, and software sectors. Customers include major players like FIS, Experian, National Bank of Canada, Nubank, GoDaddy, Deel, Gusto, Paylocity, Xero, and ZoomInfo.

For financial institutions, the practical implication is clear: consolidating fraud and AML operations around a unified AI platform can reduce operational costs, improve detection accuracy, and strengthen compliance. Rather than maintaining separate teams and tools, organizations can create a shared foundation where investigators across disciplines work from the same data and benefit from AI agents that surface connections and automate routine work. This approach also simplifies regulatory reporting and audit trails, since all investigations flow through a single system with consistent logging and documentation.

As financial crime becomes increasingly sophisticated and interconnected, the ability to see the full picture across fraud, identity, AML, and payment risk has become essential. Sardine's platform demonstrates that AI agents, when properly integrated with human expertise, can help financial institutions stay ahead of evolving threats while keeping investigators focused on the judgment calls that matter most.