3,000% increase in firms capturing ChatGPT communications, report finds
ChatGPT, TikTok, and Apple® Messages have emerged as the communications channels with the biggest increase in compliant capture – demonstrating how high-profile regulatory enforcements are influencing compliance investment.
Written by a human
New York, November 11, 2025: Global Relay, a leading provider of end-to-end compliance solutions for highly regulated industries, has shared the findings of its third annual report which unveils the communications channels firms are compliantly capturing and prioritizing as emerging recordkeeping risks.
Informed by the data of over 12,000 financial institutions, exploring more than 200 communications channels, the Communication Capture Trends Report 2025 has found significant shifts in the communications and recordkeeping landscape. Between 2024 and 2025, changing workforces have seen new communications channels coming to the fore, thereby changing the communications risk landscape:
- Almost 3,000%: The increase in the number of firms capturing ChatGPT data compared to 2024, with 100% of these firms based in North America
- More than 2,000%: Increase in the number of firms capturing data from TikTok year-on-year
- 114%: The increase in the number of firms capturing Apple® Messages
While more “traditional” business communications channels continue to constitute the top three most captured overall, including email (89% of Global Relay’s sample accounts), LinkedIn Personal Accounts (23%), and Microsoft Teams (23%), the largest increases demonstrate how firms may be reacting to current regulatory themes and compliance challenges, and provide insights on what their 2026 priorities will be:
- ChatGPT vs. DOJ: 100% of the surveyed accounts capturing ChatGPT were based in North America, after the DOJ expanded its requirements that firms capture all relevant business and communications data – including AI chatbot logs.
- Playing by the Marketing Rule: With more than $2 million in fines issued for SEC Marketing Rule violations in the last year, 33% more firms are capturing social channels, in particular TikTok data.
- Ongoing fallout of WhatsApp fines: There has been a 33% YoY increase in the number of firms capturing WhatsApp, with 89% of those firms based in North America, signaling that perhaps firms are concerned about off-channel communications risk after years of aggressive regulatory enforcement.
“Compliance teams, and the firms they’re a part of, increasingly find themselves between the ‘rock’ of regulatory expectations and the ‘hard place’ of rapidly evolving technologies,” says Ryan Sheridan, Global Relay Senior Manager, Regulatory Intelligence. “The last few years of regulatory enforcement have sunk in, and firms are clearly investing in compliance solutions in-line with regulatory focuses like off-channel communications and the SEC’s Marketing Rule.”
“Given that it was U.S. regulators setting the pace of these enforcements, it’s unsurprising to see North American firms are working to stay ahead of emerging channels like ChatGPT and TikTok and the risks they might present. While ‘traditional’ business-as-usual channels like email remain firmly in the mix, the data shows just how quickly compliance priorities can shift – and it will be very interesting to see how these results stack up compared to 2026’s.”
The Communication Capture Trends Report series gives an annual snapshot of changing communications compliance priorities, leveraging the proprietary data of over 12,000 firms to provide an overview of how firms are reacting to regulatory requirements, emerging technologies, and evolving compliance challenges.
