Authors:
Matthew Lehman, Head of Industry Strategy, Financial Services, RingCentral
Tonya Severance, Sr. Partner Product Marketing Manager, Theta Lake
Joint blog with our partner,
New insights from recent industry research reveal pressing risks and opportunities for managing the complexities of multi-channel communications in regulated industries. Conducted by Theta Lake, the sixth annual Digital Communications Governance & Archiving (DCGA) Compliance & Security Report surveyed 500+ senior IT and compliance professionals. The findings highlight the increasing compliance and governance challenges faced by businesses as they navigate hybrid work environments and multi-modal communication platforms.
The evolution of hybrid work has transformed how businesses collaborate, with tools like voice, video, SMS, and chat enabling seamless connectivity across locations between employees and with customers. However, for regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, and the public sector, these innovations bring new layers of complexity to compliance and governance. The survey underscores critical risks, including gaps in recordkeeping and the challenges of managing diverse communication channels.
“At RingCentral, we recognize the critical role compliance plays in empowering organizations to maximize employee communications, productivity and collaboration without compromising security or regulatory requirements” says Matthew Lehman, Head of Industry Strategy, Financial Services at RingCentral. “Through our trusted partnership with Theta Lake, we help regulated industries bridge governance gaps, reduce risks, and unlock productivity with seamless, secure solutions.”
By addressing these survey findings directly in this post, we’ll explore how businesses can effectively tackle compliance complexities while leveraging the full potential of modern communication platforms.
Nearly ⅓ of all survey respondents indicated that their businesses use more than seven communication channels and modalities.
The expanding scope of communications compliance
Unified communication platforms like RingCentral are central to modern business operations, integrating communication tools into a cohesive ecosystem. This innovation fosters seamless collaboration across dispersed teams but also brings increased complexity to compliance efforts.
For regulated industries, the introduction of multi-modal communication—where conversations span across voice calls, video meetings, persistent chat, and SMS—makes compliance a more intricate challenge. Organizations must ensure that every interaction is captured, archived, and accessible in its original context, regardless of format. The dynamic nature of these channels, including message edits, deletions, and attachments, further complicates governance.
The stakes are especially high for recordkeeping. Between 2022 and 2024, the SEC and CFTC levied over $4 billion in fines against organizations failing to adequately capture and govern communications on unapproved systems. These figures underscore why businesses need a unified approach to managing compliance across the diverse communication tools they rely on daily.
Gaps in compliance across modalities
As businesses rely on an increasing number of communication tools, maintaining compliance across diverse modalities has become more complex. According to the 2024/25 Digital Communications Governance & Archiving (DCGA) Compliance & Security Report, 31% of financial services IT leaders reported using more than 10 different communication and collaboration tools. While RingCentral’s unified platform seamlessly integrates these capabilities, capturing and governing them in alignment with regulatory requirements remains a critical challenge. It also presents an opportunity for regulated firms to offer the full array of communications tools and prevent employees from using unapproved or unmonitored channels.
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Cloud-based calling platforms
Voice and voicemail communications are essential but require precise governance. Beyond simple capture, metadata like timestamps and participant details must be preserved, and the rise of AI-powered transcription adds an additional layer of compliance complexity.
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Meetings
Video conferencing, a cornerstone of hybrid work, introduces multi-modal compliance demands. Video, audio, in-meeting chats, and shared files must all be retained in full fidelity. Features like collaborative whiteboards and AI note-taking tools further expand the scope of what must be governed.
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Persistent chat
Asynchronous communication through persistent chat is invaluable for collaboration but creates governance challenges with dynamic features like edits, deletions, and reactions.
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Omnichannel engagement (SMS text and social)
Engaging customers via text and through platforms like social media, messaging apps, and review sites adds another layer of complexity. Managing data formats and maintaining real-time accuracy across channels such as WhatsApp and LinkedIn can be daunting, but compliance tools provide a unified approach to handle these diverse formats effectively.
With 41%, 42%, 43% and 46% of communications and compliance IT leaders planning to broaden usage of cloud-based calling, video, chat, and social media respectively, planning for the comprehensive capture, storage and review of all regulated communications is paramount.
Refining oversight through reconciliation
Reconciliation is critical to ensuring compliance in an increasingly complex communications environment. It goes beyond simple recordkeeping by providing assurance that all interactions are accurately captured, stored, and aligned with regulatory requirements. This process ensures businesses can verify the completeness and fidelity of their records, a crucial factor in reducing risks and meeting audit expectations.
The challenge lies in fragmented storage systems, where data is scattered across platforms due to legacy infrastructure or incompatible archiving solutions. These gaps can lead to compliance failures or regulatory scrutiny.
Reconciliation is top of mind for IT leaders migrating on-prem recording to the cloud, as well as those simply trying to account for all captured and archived recordings.
The role of AI in modern compliance
The increasing complexity of communication ecosystems has rendered manual compliance oversight insufficient for meeting today’s demands. Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a vital component in addressing these challenges, streamlining the review and risk detection processes across diverse communication channels.
AI empowers organizations by detecting patterns, identifying anomalies, and flagging potential compliance risks in real time. By automating repetitive tasks, such as categorizing records and applying policies, AI reduces the operational burden on compliance teams. This enables them to concentrate on high-priority issues while maintaining thorough and efficient oversight, even as communication volumes and complexities grow. Used in concert with customer interactions, it can flag potential issues or compliance violations in real-time, enabling intervention to ensure the violations are remedied or ensuring violations don’t persist.
More than half, 62% of those surveyed indicated they are using AI for supervision workflows, yet struggle with data and implementation challenges.
Unified archiving: A strategic imperative
Unified archiving plays a vital role in overcoming the challenges of recordkeeping, reconciliation, and reporting in today’s communication landscape. Effective systems ensure the capture of all communication types while preserving their original fidelity and metadata—essential elements for maintaining compliance.
Centralized archives streamline critical processes like search, discovery, and surveillance, allowing organizations to respond to audits more efficiently and reduce operational inefficiencies. By consolidating data across platforms, unified archiving helps businesses manage growing communication volumes with greater accuracy and agility.
Nearly two-thirds of organizations report record keeping, reconciliation, and reporting challenges along with search, discovery, and surveillance gaps associated with their existing archiving systems.
Transforming compliance into opportunity
The findings of the Digital Communications Governance & Archiving (DCGA) Compliance & Security Report 2024/25 highlight the critical need for proactive compliance strategies. Compliance can no longer be treated as a reactive, isolated effort—it must be integrated into broader operational objectives to mitigate regulatory risks, improve audit readiness, and support long-term organizational agility.
By adopting proactive approaches, businesses can turn compliance into a strategic advantage. Tools and features often disabled due to compliance concerns—like in-meeting chat and file sharing—can be safely leveraged when supported by strong governance frameworks. This not only mitigates risks but also enhances productivity and ensures organizations fully capitalize on their technology investments.
Over half of the survey respondents have been forced to disable collaborative platform features, limiting productivity and increasing risks of off-channel and unmonitored communications.
The RingCentral advantage: Seamless compliance through partnership
RingCentral customers are uniquely positioned to address modern compliance challenges through our partnership with Theta Lake. Theta Lake delivers full-fidelity capture and archiving across RingCentral’s ecosystem, including RingEX, RingCX, and RingCentral AI platform. From call recordings and video meetings to omnichannel messaging, Theta Lake ensures compliance with regulatory requirements while integrating seamlessly with third-party or SEC 17a-4 compliant archives.
With advanced unified search capabilities and AI-powered risk detection, review, and supervision, Theta Lake empowers organizations to make the most of their RingCentral investments. This partnership allows businesses to enhance productivity, reduce regulatory risks, and confidently navigate the complexities of today’s communication compliance landscape.
Learn more about Theta Lake:
- The full Digital Communications Governance & Archiving (DCGA), Compliance and Security Report 2023/24 can be downloaded here.
- Visit: ThetaLake.com | LinkedIn | Twitter at @thetalake
- Keep up to date with regulatory perspectives from Theta Lake here
Originally published Jan 15, 2025