AI & Finance™ | News for the Week Ending 10/25/24

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) has made a strategic investment, through Accenture Ventures, in Reality Defender, an RSA Innovation award-winning cybersecurity company specializing in deepfake detection. Together, Accenture and Reality Defender will equip clients in the financial services, media and high-tech industries with the ability to rapidly identify, detect, respond to and prevent deepfake fraud. 

Founded in 2018 and based in New York, Reality Defender provides detection against advanced threats posed by deepfakes and AI-generated content. The company’s comprehensive solutions for enterprises, government and institutional clients help protect against everything from advanced voice fraud in call centers to media verification in newsrooms. Reality Defender’s real-time voice detection platform catches audio-based deepfakes as they happen, while audiovisual detection finds even the most advanced AI-generated faces in images and videos made using the latest generative AI models. 

Reality Defender was named the Most Innovative Company at this year’s RSA Innovation Sandbox competition. The company is also a graduate of the FinTech Innovation Lab New York, a 12-week program co-founded and co-run by Accenture. 

Affinity Federal Credit Union (“Affinity”) is proud to announce the development of a cutting-edge translation tool within its Content Management System (CMS), Crownpeak, powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4. The tool is designed to streamline the process of translating Affinity’s website into multiple languages, starting with Spanish, ensuring that members and visitors can access a seamless online experience in their preferred language. 

Developed in collaboration with NMQ Digital, a leading digital transformation agency, this translation tool leverages the advanced capabilities of ChatGPT-4 to efficiently translate web content across Affinity’s public-facing website. 

Initially launching with Spanish as the first language, Affinity aims to meet the needs of its Spanish-speaking members while laying the foundation to expand into additional languages. This innovation not only enhances accessibility for non-English speaking members but also strengthens Affinity’s ability to serve a diverse and growing audience. 

Agentech, the global AI support workforce for insurance claims, is excited to announce the successful completion of its $3 million seed round in just 30 days. This significant milestone is being announced at Naphia Engage 2024 in Phoenix, a premier event for innovation and emerging global technologies in the pet insurance industry. 

Co-founded by insurtech and fintech veterans Robin Roberson and Alex Pezold, who previously exited tech ventures totaling $182 million, Agentech leverages cutting-edge, multimodal Large Language Model (LLM) capabilities to tackle the labor intensive, subjective, and outdated claims process. The company’s AI-driven ensemble of agents automates the mundane and repetitive tasks typically handled by desk adjusters, allowing carriers to experience a 4x increase in output without incurring additional labor costs (and making the claim handler happier, too!). With over 100 expertly trained digital Agentic agents supporting a single claim file, desk adjusters receive salient information at key decision points, enabling them to focus on higher-value tasks. 

Agentech’s AI support workforce integrates seamlessly into insurers’ existing claims management systems, resulting in little to no change management. 

Better Home & Finance Holding Company (NASDAQ: BETR) (“Better.com”), the leading digital homeownership company, today announced the launch of Betsy™, the first voice-based AI Loan Assistant for the US mortgage industry. As the latest innovation built through Tinman™, the company’s proprietary loan origination platform, Betsy enhances the operational efficiency of Better.com’s licensed Loan Officers, Processors and Closers and improves its customer experience with more intelligent, timely and accurate answers to customer inquiries on an instant basis. 

Betsy leverages AI and large language models (LLMs) to accelerate a customer’s entire mortgage journey from pre-approval start to closed loan. The platform is programmed to communicate with prospective and existing Better.com customers to answer mortgage application inquiries and to collect and verify outstanding application data, all while interfacing with Tinman™ in real-time. Uniquely, Tinman is a single, unified system where all relevant facts of a loan application are stored within one comprehensive data structure. This contrasts with traditional mortgage industry software, where information is spread across multiple systems and datasets such as Point of Sale, CRM, Loan Origination System, Document Management System, and Pricing Engine. Tinman’s centralized and context-rich data environment is organized in a hierarchical, tree-like structure that is easily understood by LLMs like Betsy. This allows her to access and interpret information with full context, enabling her to understand the nuances of each customer’s loan application. As a result, Betsy can accurately answer questions in great detail and assist with outstanding tasks efficiently. The results enable faster service times, enhanced self-service capabilities, improved customer engagement, and greater sales efficiency. 

Blue J, the premier generative artificial intelligence (AI) solution designed for tax professionals and leader in AI-powered tax law research, announced today an enterprise agreement with Crowe LLP, a public accounting and consulting firm. After an extensive evaluation of tax-focused service providers, Crowe selected Ask Blue J – which accelerates the adoption of generative AI for tax through an extensive curated database of current US primary and secondary tax content – to augment the firm’s generative AI tools, bolstering both practitioner education and client outcomes. 

LTX, an AI-powered corporate bond trading platform backed by global Fintech leader, Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: BR), today announced that TD Bank has joined its e-trading platform through its subsidiary TD Securities Automated Trading LLC. TD Bank will contribute axes, or pre-trade indications of interest, to LTX’s Liquidity Cloud and utilize LTX’s RFQ+ protocol to provide Investment Grade and High Yield bond liquidity to its institutional clients. 

LTX was formed to address corporate bond market challenges that have arisen due to lack of innovation and electronification, including the disruption of relationship-based e-trading, high trading and data costs, as well as limited e-trading options for large trades. LTX is uniquely positioned to address these industry pain points by using patented AI and execution protocols to improve liquidity and efficiency, facilitating connections between dealers and buy-side clients and enabling direct, fully disclosed trading. 

Recent innovations from LTX include the generative AI application BondGPT and enterprise version BondGPT+, which assists users in identifying corporate bonds and answers complex bond-related queries in seconds, as well as RFQ+, an enhanced RFQ protocol that combines patented dealer selection score technology with patented liquidity aggregation technology to facilitate larger trades. 

bluesheets, a pioneer in financial data AI automation, is rebranding to fileAI, reflecting a significant evolution in its mission and services. This name change marks a strategic shift from a focus primarily on automating financial data to a broader commitment to automating all file types and business processes with flexible, agentic AI-driven workflows. 

As businesses seek greater efficiency and innovation without expanding their workforce, fileAI is poised to lead the way. The company focuses on eliminating manual file processing, redefining business operations with AI-driven solutions. Its new name reflects a commitment to streamlining operations across sectors, helping organizations boost effectiveness and adaptability in a rapidly changing environment. 

Ingo Payments, a trusted leader in account funding and disbursement solutions defined as money mobility, and Sardine, the leader in real-time fraud prevention, today announced a new partnership to offer instant, risk-managed account funding via card and ACH, backed by an optional zero-liability fraud guarantee. This, combined with Ingo’s industry-leading inbound check funding solution, provides issuers with a complete solution for fast, secure account funding across all three critical form factors: check, card, and ACH. 

In today’s financial landscape, issuers face the dual challenge of preventing fraud while ensuring that new accounts are funded and valuable from the start. Despite streamlined onboarding, traditional funding methods such as ACH are slow and prone to risk, often resulting in unfunded accounts and higher acquisition costs. Card funding, while faster, has been found to be highly vulnerable to fraud, causing many issuers to scale back or discontinue these options. 

The Ingo Payments and Sardine partnership addresses these issues by offering instant card and ACH funding, supported by real-time risk management that detects and prevents fraud before it impacts issuers. By combining Ingo’s and Sardine’s extensive network-wide fraud data and AI-driven analysis, the solution generates real-time risk scores, empowering issuers to make fast, informed decisions on funding eligibility while minimizing exposure to fraudulent transactions. The optional zero-liability fraud guarantee ensures issuers are fully protected from any fraud-related losses. 

The Institutes RiskStream Collaborative® announced today that they have expanded their work in Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the launch of its AI Council Initiative. The launch follows a successful AI and Large Language Model (LLM) Multiparty Applications in Insurance Summit over the summer, where over 150 industry participants gathered to share multiparty use cases for AI/LLM across the insurance value chain. The goal of the AI Council will include a new industry-led AI governance arm, working groups, and a Request for Information (RFI) to solution providers for implementing multiparty AI/LLM solutions for the insurance industry. 

RiskStream’s AI Council governance arm will provide perspective on AI/LLM usage in insurance, zoning in on multiparty opportunities, and offer recommendations to RiskStream’s Advisory Board on best use cases for RiskStream working groups to develop products and/or where to award solution providers via a RFI approach. The Council will also provide a network for the industry to share perspectives on optimizing ethical use of AI in insurance. 

Through the AI Council Initiative, there are plans to launch two AI/LLM working groups for workers compensation fraud detection as well as leveraging the technology to optimize insurance associate training and education. RiskStream has also released an RFI to existing AI/LLM solution providers to help with seven other use case opportunities that were gathered during the industry-wide AI/LLM summit and prioritized through RiskStream’s Advisory. The goal of the RFI would be to determine the pieces and solution providers that are needed to build solutions and infrastructure for multiparty AI/LLM in insurance. Solution providers are welcome to respond to one, multiple or all the sections within the RFI. Industry participants will receive collaboration and networking value through the AI Council, as well as the potential to leverage several multiparty AI/LLM solutions as they move to market. 

Kasisto, creators of the leading conversational AI platform for the financial services industry, today announced the appointment of Lance Berks as Chief Executive Officer. Berks is a seasoned leader in conversational AI with a proven track record of scaling early-stage, high-growth companies in the AI space. 

Berks joins Kasisto from Amelia, a market-leading enterprise AI software company, where he was responsible for strategy, partnerships, and global delivery, and was a member of the executive team. He previously was Senior Vice President of Conversational AI at Kore.ai. 

In September Kasisto announced the successful closing of a Series D funding round, raising the company’s total funding to $90m. The firm also announced the appointment of Don Layden as Executive Chairman of its Board of Directors. 

Bridgepoint, one of the world’s leading quoted private asset growth investors, and Kyriba, the global leader in liquidity performance, today announced that Bridgepoint will reinvest in Kyriba following a period of record growth for the business and will remain the majority shareholder. In addition, Bridgepoint and Kyriba will welcome a new minority investor, General Atlantic, a leading global growth investor. 

The transaction, which values the company at over $3 billion, is expected to close in Q4 2024, and financial terms beyond this were not disclosed. 

Following five years of support from Bridgepoint, Kyriba has grown substantially in this period, tripling its software revenue and evolving from a pioneer in treasury management to the leader in liquidity performance solutions. Today, Kyriba serves close to 3,000 customers in 170 countries. 

Layr, the insurtech startup that uses artificial intelligence to help small businesses customize commercial insurance bundles, today announces that insurance industry veteran Mark Hara is joining the company as CEO. Through a career spanning leadership roles across the insurance industry at organizations both large and small, Hara has developed the experience to help Layr scale in its next phase. Phillip Naples, Founder of Layr and former CEO, will work closely with Hara while shifting his focus to company strategy and enterprise partnerships as Chief Strategy Officer. 

Hara comes to Layr from FloodFlash, where he served as CEO. Previously he built and scaled sales, marketing, customer care and operations as COO and President of New Ventures at Bold Penguin and before that led rapid revenue expansion for the direct-to-consumer insurance platform Mylo. Hara also deeply understands large enterprises, having spent more than a decade each at Nationwide as VP of Digital Marketing and as Chief Innovation Officer and at P&G as Marketing Director. 

In the past 12 months, Layr has launched its next-generation platform, delivering enhanced functionality for policyholders and powerful analytics for its brokerage partners. Built on a modern, scalable tech stack, this platform enables rapid deployment, ensuring our users receive unparalleled digital support. Brokerages across the U.S. have recognized the increasing value of Layr’s innovative solution, with many transitioning entire Small Business Units (SBUs) to the platform. 

Options Technology (Options), a trailblazer in capital markets infrastructure, today announced a significant investment by Vitruvian Partners, a leading private equity firm known for backing high-growth companies. This investment marks the next phase of Options’ growth, with Vitruvian Partners bringing capital and strategic support to drive the company’s continued global expansion and innovation. 

Vitruvian Partners’ investment will provide Options with the financial resources and expertise needed to accelerate its growth in key areas such as high-performance Networking, Cloud, Security, AI, and Market Data services. With Vitruvian’s backing, Options is well-positioned to capitalize on new opportunities and enhance its service and product offerings to financial institutions worldwide. 

This investment follows a period of significant expansion under the ownership of Abry Partners, during which Options completed key acquisitions, including Fixnetix and Activ Financial, that helped establish its leadership in the financial technology sector. The transition to Vitruvian ownership signals a new era of growth, with a focus on scaling operations and continuing to deliver industry-leading solutions. 

Options Technology (Options), a trailblazer in Capital Markets infrastructure, today announced the strategic acquisition of Packets2Disk (P2D), a high-fidelity packet capture and analytics platform. Building on the recent launch of the Atlas product suite, this acquisition strengthens Options’ ability to provide real-time capture, monitoring, and decode capabilities around market and trading data while delivering an easily integrated analytics platform as a SaaS or fully managed service model for all data and analytics requirements. 

P2D has emerged as a disruptor in capital market analytics. Its powerful packet capture technology allows clients to track and analyze real-time and historical raw data (PCAP) through an easy-to-use GUI or API. P2D has proven its value in delivering unparalleled insights into trading and market data and is already a go-to platform, leveraged in production by some of the world’s leading Exchange and Asset Management firms. 

In acquiring P2D, Options addresses critical industry challenges with capex-heavy refresh cycles, unpredictable running costs, and reliance on expensive in-house expertise. The integration of P2D’s technology into Options’ existing offerings provides a predictable, all-inclusive cost model, available as a subscription or managed service across its network of 60+ global data centers. 

Polly, the leading provider of innovative mortgage capital markets technology and operator of the industry’s first and only cloud-native, commercially scalable, product and pricing engine (PPE), announced today the continued expansion of its groundbreaking AI platform, Polly/™ AI. The introduction of sophisticated near-miss eligibility, near-miss pricing, and suggestion actions further empowers leading lenders and their loan officers (LOs) and mortgage brokers to differentiate themselves amid an increasingly competitive market, and ultimately, deliver a better experience to consumers. 

Polly/™ AI now goes beyond explained ineligibility to identify products on the cusp of eligibility given a slight change in borrower-controlled circumstance. The platform will proactively identify the optimal product for the consumer in mere seconds, driving significant efficiency gains and time savings for both LOs and brokers. This insight creates a sizable competitive advantage, positioning them as a trusted advisor and ultimately boosting conversion. For the consumer, this shared intel can equate to a better home-buying experience and in the end, unlock their dreams of homeownership. 

The platform will also highlight near-miss pricing opportunities, enabling LOs to secure better rates for their borrower through a detailed and action-oriented set of recommendations across Polly’s unlimited pricing parameters. Gone are the days of time-consuming LLPA grid evaluation, or running a scenario multiple times. What if an LTV change of 1% might actually result in a 50-bps swing? For any factors that can directly impact rate, the LO can tap Polly/™ AI to identify those that may not have otherwise been evaluated, given how time-consuming it is for LOs to conduct this manual work in legacy engines. 

Q2 Holdings Inc. (NYSE: QTWO), a leading provider of digital transformation solutions for financial services, today announced an expanded strategic partnership with Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc. company (NASDAQ: AMZN), to continue driving innovation for its bank, credit union, and fintech customers. As part of this collaboration, AWS and Presidio, a leading technology services and solutions provider and a premier consulting partner within the Amazon Partner Network, will help Q2 expand the use of the AWS platform to power its digital banking product, including Q2 Innovation Studio solutions. Q2 will leverage AWS innovation, including generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology, for its solution suite to help financial institutions automate critical and repetitive processes and better serve their consumer and business customers. 

Q2 is using advanced technologies to help financial institutions capture the full potential of their data to drive insights for fraud detection, audience segmentation, and personalized user experiences. For example, Q2 Sentinel, a fraud detection tool, was built on Amazon SageMaker, using machine learning, endpoint interrogation, and other security technology to monitor user behavior on its digital banking platform. To date, the tool has helped identify instances of fraudulent behavior, saving customers time and money. Additionally, Q2’s Andi Copilot, an AI solution suite purpose-built for bankers, uses Amazon Bedrock to power agents that are designed to automate workflows for Q2’s commercial banking customers. 

Q2 has been an AWS customer for more than six years, leveraging AWS compute, storage, database, analytics, machine learning, and AI services. With this expanded partnership, Q2 will migrate and modernize more than 50,000 services on AWS, including its Q2 Innovation Studio and Partner Marketplace platform, which provides access to comprehensive financial data and open banking services. 

The Real Brokerage Inc. (NASDAQ: REAX), a technology platform reshaping real estate for agents, home buyers and sellers, kicked off RISE 2024—Real’s signature annual agent conference—by unveiling Leo CoPilot, an innovative, proactive enhancement of its AI-powered virtual assistant for agents. Leo CoPilot will serve as an agent command center, anticipating each agent’s unique needs and providing personalized support. More than just a reactive tool, Leo CoPilot will become the main interface agents use to manage reZEN, Real’s proprietary software platform, transforming how they run their businesses and boosting productivity. 

Real also unveiled Leo for Clients, scheduled for launch in 2025. This tool redefines client-agent interactions by allowing direct communication with Leo via standard SMS and iMessage. By handling routine inquiries with instant responses, Leo for Clients enhances the client experience, allowing agents to manage their time more effectively, reduce operational costs and focus on strategic efforts and relationship building. 

Real was the first brokerage to offer an AI assistant that delivers tailored, context-aware responses, going beyond generic, automated answers. Powered by GPT technology and advanced machine learning, Leo is fully integrated with Real’s award-winning transaction management platform, reZEN. Since launching in summer 2023, Leo has handled over 180,000 context-specific inquiries, providing agents with instant, relevant support. By continuously learning from past interactions and anticipating each agent’s future needs, Leo significantly reduces the company’s reliance on support teams. 

In an era where technology is reshaping industries at an unprecedented pace, Republic Tax stands at the forefront of innovation in tax services. The company has recently integrated advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) into its platform, aiming to revolutionize how clients address their tax debt concerns. This groundbreaking development combines cutting-edge AI technology with decades of tax preparer expertise, offering clients unparalleled support in navigating the complex world of tax debt. 

Tax debt is a mounting concern for millions of individuals and businesses. Navigating the intricate web of tax codes, regulations, and compliance requirements can be overwhelming. Missteps not only lead to financial penalties but can also result in legal complications. Traditionally, resolving tax debt issues required extensive consultations with tax professionals, a process that could be time-consuming and costly. 

For years, Republic Tax has been a trusted ally for clients seeking expert tax preparation and advisory services. The company’s team of seasoned tax professionals has consistently delivered personalized solutions, helping clients minimize liabilities and maximize returns. This legacy of excellence is now being amplified with the integration of advanced AI technology. 

Leading global AI-powered credit underwriting platform provider Scienaptic AI, announced today that Sidney Federal Credit Union has implemented its AI-based underwriting platform and is now live. This deployment is significantly streamlining the credit union’s underwriting process, leading to an increase in approval rates and a notable enhancement in the member experience. Importantly, all these advancements have been achieved while ensuring fairness, inclusivity, and compliance with regulatory standards, which are integral to Scienaptic’s AI platform. 

Sidney Federal Credit Union’s story began in 1949 when a small group of Scintilla Magneto Corporation employees met in the union lodge in Sidney, New York, and paid $25 each to fund the application fee to secure a charter. Today the credit union has over $1 Billion in assets serving 72,000 members across 12 branches. Upholding the philosophy of people helping people, the credit union is on a mission to improve the financial well-being of its members by providing products and services that exceed their expectations while making banking easier. 

TAO Digital Solutions Inc. (“TAO” or the “Company”), a leading provider of outcome-driven technology services and solutions headquartered in Santa Clara, today announced it has received a strategic growth investment from Vesper Company LLC (“Vesper”), a private investment firm that partners with founders and management teams to build enduring businesses. The investment will accelerate TAO’s global organic and inorganic growth. 

TAO specializes in delivering measurable business outcomes through its expertise in product engineering, data monetization, and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven solutions. The Company’s suite of services spans product design, development, and delivery, with a focus on helping clients leverage data and automation to create business outcomes. TAO’s tailored AI-driven solutions empower companies to advance in competitive markets with services such as payment processing, industry-specific platform development, and cutting-edge managed services. With a team of more than 3,000 global employees, TAO services prominent clients in the automotive, technology, fintech, healthcare, eCommerce, and media sectors. 

TAO has grown rapidly and is now at a strategic inflection point. Through this partnership with Vesper, TAO will be positioned to execute on key M&A opportunities, expand its global presence, and further invest in its library of AI models to differentiate its product engineering and data services offerings to its customers. Vesper will provide aligned, long-term capital and active strategic and tactical support from its experienced investment team and deep network of industry advisors. 

WECU, a Washington-based credit union with over 160,000 members and over $2.7 billion in assets, has announced a new partnership with Upstart (NASDAQ: UPST), the leading artificial intelligence (AI) lending marketplace, to provide personal loans to new and existing members. 

WECU started lending as a partner on the Upstart Referral Network in December 2023. With the Upstart Referral Network, qualified personal loan applicants on Upstart.com who meet WECU’s credit policies will receive tailored offers as they seamlessly transition into a WECU-branded experience to complete the online member application and closing process. 

Wolters Kluwer Tax and Accounting (TAA) announced a series of transformative enhancements to its comprehensive cloud solution, CCH Axcess™, designed to streamline workflows across return preparation, firm management, and audit. Additionally, they have expanded vendor participation in the CCH® Marketplace, further committing to open integration in support of growth. 

At the core of these enhancements is firm intelligence – empowering professionals to harness the power of data, industry insights, and integrated tools to optimize potential and maximize expertise. This latest series of innovations leverages cutting-edge AI technology and is aimed at enabling professionals and businesses of all sizes to drive productivity, navigate change, and deliver superior outcomes. 

CCH Axcess’ integrated platform eliminates the need for configuring multiple integration points, providing firms with full visibility into their operations. This includes access to real-time project updates, broader workflow trends, and key performance indicators, effectively enhancing the management of the entire firm.