In Middesk's early days, the founding team were all compliance analysts. We traded off one-hour shifts around the clock. On any given night at 3am, you could find one of us manually reviewing businesses, digging through state filings, cross-referencing addresses, tracing beneficial ownership chains. Every case was handled by hand because that's what it took to get the data right and do right by customers.
This wasn't sustainable of course, but it taught us the ins and outs of customer business operations and decision-making. The work wasn't just operational. It taught us what quality compliance actually looks like. We saw which information gaps caused the most delays, which patterns mattered for risk assessment, and how expert analysts actually make decisions. We were building the database that would eventually become the backbone of the product.
As Middesk scaled, we formalized this into "Analyst in the Loop." We hired compliance experts who became an extension of the product, handling complex cases that automation couldn't touch yet. But we were always collecting data on what analysts did, how they reasoned, where they spent their time. Every manual review was training data for what we’d eventually build.
That's how Agent in the Loop was born.
Middesk is building research agents that handle the toil: the repetitive lookups, routine checks, information gathering that consumes time but not judgment. Agents validate locations, identify beneficial owners, surface ownership patterns — all in real time while analysts review. Agents research and surface findings with evidence and sources. Analysts maintain control, approving what gets added to the record.
The years of manual work gave the team evaluation criteria. They know what good research looks like. They know what correct decisions look like. They know when an agent is reasoning well versus confidently wrong. That's not training data for pattern matching. That's building the judgment to know whether AI is actually working.
In internal testing, manual review time has dropped from 15-20 minutes to under 10. Auto-approval rates are trending toward 50%+ because agents provide context needed for confident decisions. The ops team says it feels like having an expert researcher who never sleeps.
This is what it looks like to build AI natively into a product. At Middesk, we believe true AI-enablement isn’t a bolt on a chatbot or slapping on "AI-powered." AI didn't change what we care about — it expanded how much we can care about. Going deeper, moving faster, attending to problems that weren't touchable before. This is transforming risk from a barrier into a strategic lever for growth.
Middesk is building more agents, more intelligence, more ways to turn compliance into a growth engine. If you're dealing with complex onboarding cases or growing manual review queues, we would love to show you how these agents drive real business results in practice. Contact us to learn more.
