When the first elevators were built, people were afraid to step inside. The idea of being lifted high above the ground by a machine felt unnatural, even dangerous. There were no safety standards, no guarantees.
Then, in 1854, Elisha Otis changed everything. During a demonstration at the World’s Fair, Otis rode his elevator platform high above the crowd. At the peak, he cut the rope. The platform dropped and then stopped safely. His new safety brake held firm.
That moment didn’t just prove his invention worked. It built trust. The elevator became part of modern life, and cities began to rise vertically. What once seemed risky now became essential.
Every leap forward follows the same pattern: innovation arrives first, and the framework that makes it safe follows close behind. And that balance between progress and protection is exactly where today’s leaders find themselves.
The next great lift: from mechanics to machine logic
Today, we’re living through a new kind of ascent. Not vertical this time, but digital. The machinery isn’t made of iron and rope. It’s algorithms, automation, and data flows that power entire industries.
Yet just like those early elevators, our digital systems can’t reach their full height without safety mechanisms. That’s where the frameworks of regulation and the tools that interpret them come in.
This is the role RegTech now plays. Short for Regulatory Technology, it’s the mechanism that allows innovation to rise safely. It takes what’s complex including the language of laws, policies, and compliance and translates it into clear, actionable guidance.
Where once we built physical safety brakes, now we build digital ones. RegTech gives organizations visibility into changing rules, automates responses, and ensures that progress never outruns control.
Regtech: Then and now
When elevators gained their safety brakes, cities transformed. Buildings stretched higher. Workplaces and homes expanded into the sky.
A similar shift is happening in business. As regulatory technology matures, it’s enabling organizations to scale with confidence to grow without fear of falling.
In the past, compliance meant reacting by reading through pages of legislation, interpreting by hand, and updating processes line by line. Now, automation and intelligent logic make it possible to stay ahead. Compliance becomes part of daily operations, not an afterthought.
This evolution isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about trust. Every organization depends on it.
RegTech allows leaders to make informed decisions, act faster, and remain transparent as they grow. It doesn’t slow progress down, it keeps it steady.
Why change is opportunity for leaders?
Every organization now is facing the same current. Regulations shift, expectations rise, and technology evolves faster than policies can keep up. But not every leader reacts the same way.
Some see regulation as a roadblock – a series of obstacles to work around. Others see it as a signal – a reflection of where the world is heading. Those are the leaders who use change to their advantage.
They don’t wait for new rules to force action. They stay curious, invest early, and treat compliance as part of their innovation strategy. Instead of asking, “How do we keep up?”, they ask, “How do we use this to get better?”
That shift is becoming visible across industries. 40% of business leaders now identify regulatory pressure among their top three business concerns, up from 29% the year before. The rise reflects a broader reality: regulation is no longer a background issue; it’s a strategic one.
At the same time, the RegTech sector itself is expanding rapidly. Congruence Market Insights (2025) reports that the global RegTech and Compliance Automation market was valued at USD 14.6 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 71.7 billion by 2032, growing at a CAGR of 22.1%.
Behind those numbers is a clear message. Organizations aren’t adopting RegTech just to stay compliant. They’re doing it to stay competitive. By embedding regulatory intelligence into operations, leaders are building resilience, efficiency, and trust.
This isn’t just technology adoption. It’s a shift in mindset. Leaders are realizing that compliance done well isn’t a cost. It’s a capability. It builds trust, sharpens decision-making, and turns responsibility into resilienc
What’s next for RegTech?
If the story of the elevator was about earning trust in a single moment, the story of RegTech is about building it over time. What began to make compliance more manageable is quickly becoming a foundation for how organizations operate.
The next chapter of RegTech will be defined by integration. Regulatory intelligence will move from the periphery of business to its core, woven into decision models, workflows, and even the algorithms that power operations. Compliance won’t sit beside the business; it will be built into it.
In the coming years, we’ll see:
- Rules as Code move from pilot projects to practice, making regulations machine-readable and ready for automated application.
- AI-driven interpretation evolve from identifying changes to forecasting their impact before they occur.
- Connected ecosystems emerge, where regulators, industries, and technology providers share data for more transparent oversight.
- Embedded compliance become the norm where doing the work and proving it happen simultaneously.
RegTech is on its way to becoming invisible infrastructure, always present, always protecting, but rarely seen. It will be the quiet framework that allows organizations to innovate confidently and responsibly.
Time to ride the RegTech wave forward
Just as the elevator’s safety brake gave cities the confidence to grow, regulatory technology provides that same assurance for modern progress, quietly keeping innovation steady, structured, and safe.
At Be Informed, this is where our focus lies: helping organizations turn complexity into clarity so that innovation can move responsibly, with purpose and control. We work with partners navigating constant regulatory motion from digital transformation and AI oversight to sustainability and operational governance, building systems that evolve as fast as the world around them.
Our platform transforms regulations into living logic: rules that can be read, tested, and refined over time. It connects compliance directly to operations, making it part of how work gets done rather than a layer that slows it down.
The result is an organization that can adapt without losing structure, respond without confusion, and innovate without risk. Because when trust and transparency are built in, progress doesn’t hesitate, it rises.
