If you’ve been in background screening long enough, you know how far we’ve come.
There was a time when courthouse runs were part of the daily routine, HR verifications meant playing phone tag, and every report was a mix of patience, paper, and persistence.
The process was manual, but it had heart. Every CRA professional knew their craft inside out.
Dashboards replaced desks piled with files. Integrations cut turnaround times from weeks to hours. We could scale without adding headcount.
But as systems grew smarter, many CRAs quietly began to feel something missing – control!
Feature requests went into long queues. Customizations had timelines stretching six to ten months. Integration dependencies slowed innovation.
SaaS made operations faster, but it also made many feel like passengers in their own tech journey.
At the 2025 PBSA Annual Conference in Anaheim, that undercurrent became a clear conversation. The industry mood has shifted.
We were right in the middle of it, exhibiting at Booth #717, where our team showcased the AI-Powered Background Check Accelerator.
In fact, the sessions weren’t about whether AI belongs in screening; they were about how to use it responsibly.
Talks like “An Iron Man Suit Without Tony Stark” and “How Autonomous Digital Coworkers Are Revolutionizing Background Screening” captured the moment perfectly.
At our booth and also across the floor, one theme kept coming up – ownership.
CRAs want technology they can truly shape. They want flexibility, faster customizations, and systems that think with them, not for them.
That’s exactly where our AI-Powered Background Check Accelerator fits in. It gives CRAs their autonomy back.
✔️ No SaaS. No Vendor Lock.
✔️ Natively AI-Built.
✔️ Cloud-Agnostic.
✔️ Fluid Integrations.
✔️ Fully Customizable
The idea of “owning your intelligence” rather than “renting functionality” resonated deeply with screening firms, especially mid-sized CRAs balancing regulatory pressure with digital acceleration.
Here’s a glimpse of Azilen at the 2025 PBSA Annual Conference.
The conversations at PBSA 2025 felt like a turning point. Just like the move from paper to SaaS changed how CRAs operated, AI is now changing how the industry thinks.
And we all know that screening runs on trust. AI doesn’t replace that; it strengthens it.
So, judging by the energy in Anaheim, we can surely say that CRAs everywhere are ready to step into that next chapter.
The sessions this year reflected an industry transitioning toward data-driven operations, AI adoption, and risk-aware digital transformation across CRAs, employers, and screening vendors.
| AI in Screening | “An Iron Man Suit Without Tony Stark,” “Can AI Judge Character?”, “Leveraging AI to Build a Better Business” | AI is officially part of the CRA toolkit. The focus is shifting from automating clicks to enhancing judgment. AI handles volume and speed; humans bring interpretation and ethics. |
| Legal & Compliance | “Mythbusters: Global Screening Misconceptions,” “U.S. Data Breach Readiness and Response Pitfalls” | Global privacy, FCRA alignment, and data breach accountability are front and center. Compliance is now both a legal and technological discipline. |
| Operational Excellence | “Let Data Drive Your Decision Making,” “The Policy Puzzle” | Data-driven operations are defining high-performing CRAs. The best-run agencies use data to steer decisions, refine policy, and drive continuous improvement. |
| Customer Experience & Relationship Management | “The Customer Relationship Best Practices,” “Behind the Screens: Securing Data in the Background Screening Industry” | Client trust has become a strategic advantage. Transparency, proactive communication, and shared compliance responsibility are now key growth levers. |
| Global Expansion & Localization | “Background Screening Without Borders,” “Around the World Trivia with Will and Sally” | Global screening demands local context. Scalable systems require cultural, regulatory, and technical localization to work seamlessly. |
From compliance automation to instant verification, the energy around intelligent workflows was everywhere.
The analogy that stuck with everyone came from Eric Liu’s session – “An Iron Man Suit Without Tony Stark.” It summed it up perfectly.
AI gives CRAs the speed, power, and reach that manual operations could never match. But the real intelligence still sits with people who know context, exceptions, and ethics.
The best setups blended both: machines doing the heavy lift, humans guiding the outcome.
Several demos showed what’s already happening behind the curtain.
AI agents are now logging in, fetching data, verifying records, and pushing results back into workflows, on their own.
It’s not about replacing teams, but freeing them to focus on higher-value judgment calls. We’re officially entering the age of “autonomous digital coworkers” in screening.
The AI adoption wave is strongest in employment verification and fraud detection.
Platforms like Argus Verify and ASC’s Beyond the Check are already reducing backlog and spotting red flags that manual audits often miss.
CRAs are realizing that catching inconsistencies at the data-entry level is easier than cleaning them up downstream.
Sessions on data breach readiness and vendor compliance hit hard.
With privacy laws tightening and penalties growing, data protection is now a shared responsibility between tech and compliance teams.
In short, security has moved from the back office to the front line.
The leadership tone this year felt refreshingly honest.
The conversations were grounded in what actually drives sustainable screening businesses in an AI-first world.
The strongest CRAs are treating compliance and engineering like two halves of the same muscle. The message was clear – governance is code, and code needs governance.
Those who align both early will stay ahead of regulatory and operational curveballs.
The technology isn’t the barrier; culture is. Teams that understand AI’s purpose – where it helps, how it learns, and why oversight matters – are deploying it faster and smarter.
The best leaders are teaching their teams how to reason with AI, not just how to use it.
Every discussion about client experience circled back to one word: trust.
With similar products and turnaround times across vendors, credibility, data ethics, and transparency are now the real differentiators.
The future CRA brand will be built as much on trust as on technology.
Solutions from Equifax, InformData, and others showed how live data and AI reasoning can cut turnaround times dramatically while maintaining accuracy.
From our conversations at Booth #717 and across the floor at PBSA 2025, one theme stood out clearly – almost every CRA wants control over their technology, but few have the technical muscle to actually build or customize it.
Most screening businesses run with lean teams, focused on compliance, operations, and client relationships. Code, cloud, and AI pipelines sit outside their comfort zone.
Many leaders said they want to move away from rented SaaS models because they’re tired of long roadmaps and integration bottlenecks. But the moment they think about owning their own tech, the next question hits: “Who’s going to maintain it?”
That’s exactly where our AI-Powered BGC Accelerator found its place in the conversation. It bridges the middle ground – full ownership, without the full engineering burden.
The platform is already AI-native, cloud-agnostic, and built for CRA workflows. Customizations, integrations, and compliance alignment don’t start from zero. Our team helps CRAs shape it around their business workflows.
The interest we saw in Anaheim wasn’t just about adopting AI; it was about regaining control.
The industry is ready to own its intelligence layer, but it needs a partner who understands both background screening and applied AI.
The conversations in Anaheim felt like a moment of realization.
CRAs everywhere are ready to evolve from system users to system owners. AI has opened that door, but the journey ahead will be defined by those who treat technology as a business capability, not a dependency.
The next chapter of background screening will belong to agencies that design their own intelligence layer, platforms that think with their teams, learn from their data, and adapt to their clients.
And from what we saw at PBSA 2025, that shift has already begun.
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