Chalk up another win for Artificial Intelligence (AI). More particularly, let’s hear it for the AI program that ferreted out suspicious trading activity based on individuals' psychological tendencies gleaned from piles of communications.

Called in to help companies that were under investigation for possible trading irregularities, Behavox, a U.K. start-up, detected a link between poker nights – attended by heads of trading from major investment banks – and big spikes in their firms' trading profits.

According to Erkin Adylov, CEO of Behavox:

"The relationship between the people involved is the reason we flagged it. The three people who kept playing poker were very close and seem important - i.e. there seemed like there was a business relation. The fact that these guys spent a ton of time playing poker when they were clearly busy was the first thing we highlighted. When you analyzed P&L and overlaid one data set with another, there was a big spike in P&L after the poker night. When we highlighted, the compliance guys were able to connect the dots and found it was a case of collusion."

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