Built in partnership with Socure’s identity verification technology, the new product will expand on Element451’s fraud detection capabilities, putting AI agents to work to help combat a fraud problem now costing higher education millions nationwide.

RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Element451, the AI platform built for higher education, today announced Bolt Fraud Detection and Resolution, the next evolution of its fraud detection capabilities. Bolt Fraud Detection and Resolution will continuously monitor applicant and student data, in tandem with Socure to verify identity and investigate unusual or suspicious activity, before taking follow-up action directly, and coordinating with staff toward a final decision. The partnership with Socure, the leading AI-native trust infrastructure for global identity and risk intelligence, brings its fraud and identity signals to the center of that work.

Fraud has become a significant financial and legal risk to higher education institutions, as well as a barrier to access for legitimate students. Detection technology alone isn’t keeping pace. Schemes are evolving faster than institutions can manually chase evidence, verify identities, and follow up with applicants. The Department of Education’s Inspector General has said “ghost student” fraud cost taxpayers at least $350 million over the past five years. Fraud Detection and Resolution will address exactly that gap, with AI agents acting on behalf of staff to keep every case moving.

Fraud Detection and Resolution will give staff a coordinated workflow for screening, verification, review, and follow-up. Instead of a process that ends at the fraud flag, staff will be able to see why a record needs attention, review the available evidence, request identity verification, and document the outcome. An AI agent will then handle the follow-up work, coordinating verification requests and surfacing unresolved cases for review, so nothing sits untouched while staff keep full control of the outcome.

From Detection to Decision

Schools have traditionally combated fraud through systems built to flag a suspicious application. To block as much fraud as possible, those systems are often tuned to catch anything unusual, which means legitimate students can get flagged too, and risk being delayed or blocked from registering or receiving aid. Once a flag goes up, staff are left to do the rest, chasing down evidence across disconnected systems, tracking down the applicant for verification, and documenting a decision, often while the case sits with no clear owner as it moves between staff. For institutions already stretched thin, that gap between detection and resolution is where fraud slips through, and where legitimate students can get caught in it.

Fraud Detection and Resolution is designed for AI to do the legwork and staff to make the call. The agent handles the manual work that eats up staff hours, while the final fraud determination, along with any admissions or financial-aid decision, stays with the people accountable for it.

“For schools, this isn’t just about catching fraud, it’s about maintaining student access and alleviating the tremendous pressure administrators have to catch and act on every single potential case. Pairing Socure’s identity technology with our Bolt agents means institutions can augment their team with powerful AI agents utilizing the most accurate and extensive fraud detection technology available,” said Ty Fujimura, Chief Product Officer at Element451.

Element451 chose Socure to build on its existing fraud detection capabilities and strengthen the identity verification at the center of Fraud Detection and Resolution. Socure’s identity technology is used by the U.S. Department of Education to secure the FAFSA process nationwide, and its platform is able to verify up to 98% of applicants. Its fraud models are also built to catch patterns common across higher education and ghost students, including high-risk emails, repurposed phones, high-risk digital traffic, and coordinated fake identities across applications.

“Fraud in higher education is becoming more sophisticated, more coordinated, and harder for institutions to address through manual processes alone,” said Jordan Burris, Head of Public Sector at Socure. “Our partnership with Element451 brings together identity intelligence and agentic workflows to help institutions move from detecting suspicious activity to resolving it faster and with greater confidence. For institutions, that means catching more fraud earlier and resolving questionable cases without adding more manual work for already stretched teams.”

How Fraud Detection and Resolution Works

Fraud Detection and Resolution is designed for the admissions, enrollment, and fraud-review staff who investigate suspicious applications and contact records, whether their institution runs on Element451’s AI CRM, another CRM or student information system, or an existing fraud detection tool. Rather than adding another tool to check, it fits directly into the review work already underway, giving staff a clear owner and a documented outcome for every case. Institutional data remains fully confidential, processed in Socure’s FedRAMP-certified environment.

Here’s how that may look at an institution:

• An application is flagged as moderate-risk, prompting staff to review the evidence, identify what’s missing, and coordinate verification before documenting an outcome.
• When a record needs a second look, staff can request a live video appointment to further validate identity, while keeping every earlier attempt on file.
• After enrollment, whenever Bolt detects unusual activity or changes to a student’s data, Bolt will use Socure’s technology to assess the risk and take appropriate action in coordination with staff.
• When a case remains unresolved, staff get an owned investigation, with the evidence, communications, and verification attempts already in place.
• For institutions on an existing CRM, student information system, or fraud tool, records flow in through a supported integration, and outcomes reconcile back to the source system.

The results are already showing up at schools using Element451’s existing fraud detection capabilities. At Galveston College in Texas, the platform has flagged more than 1,100 potentially fraudulent applications out of over 6,200 received in just over a year, nearly 90% of which have held up as fraudulent on review.

“Before Element451, we were manually combing through applications trying to spot inconsistencies, like a birth date that didn’t line up with a high school graduation year, and I’m sure we missed a lot of fraud in the process,” said Scott Branum, Director of Admissions and Registrar at Galveston College. “Now we catch it early and can act with confidence. Without that, we’d likely be finding these cases too late, after financial aid funds were already gone.”

Learn More at EDUCAUSE

Element451 is inviting admissions and enrollment leaders to connect now to talk through how Fraud Detection and Resolution fits into their strategy.

For a first look at Fraud Detection and Resolution, come see Element451 at EDUCAUSE.

About Element451

Element451 delivers AI products purpose-built for higher education. Bolt is the AI Agent Engine for higher education, deploying specialized agents across every stage of the student lifecycle to drive outcomes for institutions and students alike. Element is the AI-native CRM for higher education, connecting data, workflows, and AI agents across every team and every stage of the student journey. Element451 supports more than 350 institutions in powering over 60 million student journeys, including Columbia University, Louisiana State University, Tulane University, the North Carolina Community College System, and the University System of Georgia.

About Socure

Socure is the leading AI-native trust infrastructure, providing identity and risk intelligence to the world. Socure is trusted by the largest enterprises and government agencies to build trust and mitigate risk with its identity verification, compliance and fraud prevention solutions. Leveraging AI and machine learning, Socure achieves the highest accuracy, automation, and capture rates in the industry.

Serving more than 3,000 customers and 190+ countries across financial services, government, gaming, healthcare, telecom, and e-commerce, Socure’s customer base includes the top five U.S. banks, four of the Mag 7, the largest HR payroll and workforce providers, four of the five largest U.S. crypto exchanges, the largest sportsbook and prediction market operators, 160 organizations across the public sector, and more than 600 fintechs.

Leading organizations trust Socure to deliver certainty in identity across onboarding, authentication, payments, account changes, and regulatory compliance. Learn more at www.socure.com.

Media Contact:
Chris Griffin
Senior Director, Brand & Content
Element451
chris.griffin@element451.com

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SOURCE Element451