June 2024: Top five AI stories of the month
The topic of artificial intelligence (AI) continues to dominate headlines and narratives throughout the world of fintech. Here, we take a look back at five of the top AI stories from June, featuring Vertex, Nubank, Backbase, Hyperplane, IBM, AccountsIQ and more.
NatWest prepares to introduce GenAI-powered virtual assistant Cora+ in collaboration with IBM
NatWest prepares to launch Cora+ virtual assistant
NatWest is preparing to roll out its generative AI-powered virtual assistant service, Cora+, which has been developed in collaboration with IBM’s enterprise AI and data platform, Watsonx.
Set to be introduced through a “12-week pilot to address learnings and updates”, the upgrades build on the text-based service initially launched by NatWest in 2017.
The latest developments will enable the service to derive information from multiple sources through multi-channel integration, and to provide contextualised, pre-emptive responses.
Following the completion of its pilot testing phase with IBM, which has been involved in the project since November, NatWest indicates that Cora+ will be “fully rolled out at a later date”.
Pennsylvania’s Vertex purchases AI tax capabilities from Ryan
Tax technology solutions provider Vertex announced its acquisition of “tax-specific AI capabilities” this month from Ryan, LLC, a tax services and software company based in Dallas, Texas.
The taxtech company anticipates that its new AI features will increase the accuracy of tax compliance by integrating proprietary and private large language models (LLM) to provide generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) capabilities.
It adds that by utilising LLMs, tax teams will be able to harness the “benefits of AI technologies while maintaining control of their data”, achieved through the delivery of “trusted AI”, which ensures enhanced “accuracy without aggregating, sharing or mining customer data like other approaches”.
AccountsIQ secures €60m to embed AI into accounting platform
AccountsIQ raises €60m Series C from Axiom Equity
Dublin-based financial management software firm AccountsIQ has bagged a €60 million Series C investment this month from growth investment fund Axiom Equity.
The company, founded in 2004, predicts that its newfound pursuit of combining the platform with AI will “deliver even more value to its diverse customer base” and “shape the finance function of the future”.
On this, founder and CEO Tony Connolly claims the investment will “allow us to leverage AI tools into practical, easy to adopt services for our user base; to make finance team roles more flexible, valuable, less repetitive and indeed more interesting”.
Backbase hires Chris Shayan to lead integration of AI into Engagement Banking platform
Amsterdam-based fintech Backbase appointed “digital leader” Chris Shayan as head of AI this month to guide the latest technology enhancements to its Engagement Banking platform.
Backbase will leverage Shayan’s “hands-on experience with AI” to apply LLMs to the platform and “significantly advance” its adoption of the technology.
Thomas Fuss, CTO of Backbase, says the appointment “is set to lead our AI initiatives into an exciting future”, in an initiative Shayan adds will “personalise and innovate the customer journey, unlocking new avenues for banks to increase customer lifetime value”.
Brazil’s Nubank buys AI-powered data intelligence start-up Hyperplane
Nubank acquires Hyperplane
Brazilian challenger Nubank has acquired US-based data intelligence start-up Hyperplane this month for an undisclosed sum.
The deal will see Nubank utilise Hyperplane’s AI expertise to power its core machine learning capabilities and build foundational models that its product and engineering teams can “consume” to upgrade its customer experience at “every step of their journey”.
Founded in 2022, Hyperplane offers a platform that helps financial institutions assess, train, and deploy self-supervised, deep-learning models leveraging first-party data to enhance decision-making.
Nubank says its existing technology infrastructure and “integration path” will allow the challenger to instantly leverage Hyperplaneʼs AI capabilities from “day one”.
