HSBC Holdings Plc. has partnered with Silicon Valley-based artificial intelligence startup Ayasdi Inc. to automate some of its compliance processes in a bid to become more efficient.

The banking group is implementing the company’s AI technology to automate anti money-laundering investigations that have traditionally been conducted by thousands of humans, the bank’s COO Officer Andy Maguire said in an interview last week.

The vast majority of anti-money laundering investigations at banks do not find suspicious activity, resulting in a waste of resources, according to the startup.

In a pilot of Ayasdi’s technology, HSBC saw the number of investigations drop by 20 percent without reducing the number of cases referred for more scrutiny, according to the startup.

Banks have been ramping up their use of AI and automation over the past year to save money and time on cumbersome and manual processes ranging from compliance checks to customer service.

One of the financial technology areas that has seen significant collaboration has been so-called “regtech,” or technology that can help financial institutions stay compliant with regulations and avoid hefty fines in areas such as money laundering or market manipulation.

To cope with increased regulatory scrutiny and a swathe of new rules, banks went on a compliance hiring spree in the years following the financial crisis.