The Challenge with General AI Tools for Regulatory Work
Energy regulatory work is uniquely challenging. Professionals in this field often wrestle with massive dockets containing hundreds of documents, tight deadlines for comprehensive analysis, and the constant need to monitor regulatory developments across multiple jurisdictions. While general-purpose AI tools like Microsoft Copilot have gained popularity across industries, regulatory professionals require specialized solutions that address their specific pain points.
Copilot offers valuable AI assistance for everyday business tasks, but it falls short when applied to the specialized demands of regulatory analysis. HData offers a purpose-built regulatory solution that combines a centralized library of filings with powerful AI and specialized regulatory features. These two solutions differ significantly, with implications for regulatory professionals. Here are the major differences between HData and Copilot.
Five Critical Differences That Matter for Regulatory Professionals
1. Grounded Responses vs. External Sources
HData ensures all AI-generated responses are based exclusively on the documents the user chooses to analyze. Known as grounding, this approach protects against hallucinations and prevents the incorporation of irrelevant or inaccurate sources, including the internet—a necessary safeguard when dealing with regulatory matters.
Copilot can pull information from both your documents and internet sources, leaving you to validate the accuracy and relevance of each external reference.
2. Precise and Transparent Citations vs. Page Numbers
HData provides text-level citations that point directly to specific passages within documents, allowing you to immediately verify the source of any AI-generated insight. For regulatory documents that are often hundreds of pages, this precision is invaluable. HData also provides transparency into the AI framework that breaks down your prompts into more detailed queries across each of the files in the document selection. This gives users full visibility into how their queries and documents are analyzed in order to return a comprehensive answer.
Copilot only provides document page numbers or website links. Sifting through this information is a time-consuming process that can defeat the purpose of AI assistance. Aside from the source link and page number, there is no additional information displayed to the user indicating how the AI response was generated.
3. Multiple LLMs vs. Single-Point Dependency
HData leverages multiple large language models in an agentic framework, optimizing performance for different types of regulatory tasks while protecting against outages or performance issues with any single model.
Copilot limits users to Microsoft's model ecosystem, creating dependency and potentially missing out on specialized capabilities and strengths from other leading AI providers.
4. Integrated Regulatory Library vs. Manual File Management
HData includes a comprehensive library of state and federal regulatory filings with modern search capabilities, allowing immediate AI analysis for a large number of documents at once.
Copilot requires manual downloading and uploading of regulatory documents from various docket systems. For AI analysis, Copilot currently supports a maximum limit of just 20 files per query—insufficient for many regulatory projects.
5. Regulatory-Specific Features vs. Generic Functionality
HData offers specialized tools designed for regulatory professionals, including automated surfacing of companies, names, dates, and events from filings, suggested prompts based on document content, and customizable alerts to proactively monitor regulatory developments.
Microsoft Copilot provides no specialized features for regulatory work, treating regulatory analysis the same as any other task.
Real-World Impact: What Professionals Are Saying
The limitations of general AI tools become apparent in practice. A compliance data analyst explained, "I thought we might be a good candidate for HData because Copilot didn't have enough bandwidth for thousands of documents quite frankly. Nothing against Copilot, it's just not for our data needs. We work with bigger cases."
A transmission pricing and rates manager highlighted the transparency issue. "I think seeing where answers are coming from is helpful because when I download a couple of FERC dockets and throw it in Copilot, what is it doing? I don't know."
The Bottom Line for Regulatory AI
Microsoft Copilot serves as a useful general-purpose AI assistant, but regulatory professionals face unique challenges that require specialized solutions. The combination of massive document volumes, the need for authoritative sources, precise citations, and regulatory-specific workflows demands purpose-built tools.
HData addresses these specific needs with:
- Grounded AI responses from authoritative sources only
- Text-level citations for complete transparency
- Multiple LLMs for optimal performance and high system availability
- Integrated regulatory filing library
- Specialized features for regulatory insights
For energy professionals who rely on accurate, comprehensive regulatory analysis, the choice between a general AI tool and a purpose-built regulatory platform can significantly impact efficiency, accuracy and risk management.
The regulatory landscape continues to evolve rapidly, and professionals need AI tools that address their unique requirements. While general AI assistants have their place, HData offers the precision, transparency, and specialized functionality that regulatory work demands.
Learn More
Explore HData's regulatory intelligence capabilities and request a demo to test drive your data with Regulatory AI.
