Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance (ANDI) Europe has announced a significant investment with Oxford-based AI company Mind Foundry. The partnership will spawn a new joint venture research lab in Oxford called the Aioi R&D Lab – Oxford.
The lab is expected to bring together insights from the Aioi Nissay Dowa Group of companies and the wider insurance sector with applied machine learning from Mind Foundry, creating and developing an AI to solve important problems within the field.
The partnership further builds on a successful collaboration that has delivered improvements within the industry, including customer retention, safe driving, and fraud detection. The lab aims to develop real-world solutions to tackle various significant challenges in society, from sustainability to autonomous mobility.
“Insurance was born in the UK and breakthroughs of many kinds have their origin here, so it’s the perfect place for our new hub of innovation,” ANDI president Keisuke Niiro said. “The Aioi R&D Lab aims to solve global-scale social issues through developing cutting-edge insurance and services utilising AI technologies.”
Niiro said that the lab will combine the capabilities of Oxford researchers, the AI provided by Mind Foundry, and the insurance capabilities of Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance to develop solutions for significant societal challenges.
“Coming together as ‘One Team,’ I am confident Aioi Nissay Dowa and the experts in the Oxford ecosystem can offer solutions that will have a tremendous impact on the world,” Niiro said.
“We have made a long-term commitment to invest in cutting-edge innovation in the development of new insurance models, products, and services – not just for our own benefit, but to create a shared value that solves social and community issues across all parts of society,” AND-E group CEO Michael Kainzbauer said. “Insurance is pivotal to mitigating and protecting people from the impact of some of the biggest issues facing our planet and our populations, and we are excited to be working with Mind Foundry to take some big strides towards practical solutions that will drive change at a massive scale.”
The lab will focus on several topics that create shared value across society, including:
On the board of the newly formed lab are key representatives from AND-E and Mind Foundry. Kainzbauer will chair the board while AND-E executive manager Jun Ikegami will take the post of CEO. The two will work alongside Mind Foundry CEO Brian Mullins and ANDI representatives from the ANDI holding company, Masauki Yazawa and Kuniaki Uehara.
Supporting the board is an advisory panel of professors from the University of Oxford, each with different expertise across many disciplines that sit at the heart of the transformations facing society, with particular focus on insurance. These include Mind Foundry co-founders professor Stephen Roberts and professor Michael Osborne. The rest are as follows:
Michael Wooldridge, professor of computer science at Oxford University
The lab’s aim is to build a better understanding of the data that surrounds us and identify ways in which truly informative “big knowledge” can be extracted from that information, and not just the “big data,” according to Stephen Roberts, Mind Foundry co-founder and professor of machine learning at University of Oxford.
“Big data is useful up to a point, but what we need now are very smart algorithms that can distil that data into knowledge that is interpretable, valuable, understandable, and beneficial to everybody,” Roberts said. “We want to understand the societal impact – not just of insurance, but of risk, environment, and sustainability – and form a foundation for how algorithms of all levels of sophistication can work in harmony with society.”
“Mind Foundry is dedicated to tackling high-stakes problems with AI – and the insurance sector is not only one that impacts all of our lives both individually and at scale, but it’s also at the forefront of long-term thinking about global economic problems and the effects of change on people and civilization,” Mind Foundry CEO Brian Mullins said. “We could not have better partners as we take on some major challenges in that field with this R&D lab.
“Aioi Nissay Dowa shares our aspirations and understands the importance of digital transformation working with – not against – society, and we will also benefit from the University of Oxford’s rich ecosystem, which has been at the cutting edge of AI research for decades,” Mullins said. “We look forward to deepening our relationship with ANDI and the University of Oxford and working together to create a more inclusive and fairer world for all.”
Besides the advancement of AI, several new breakthroughs have also been introduced within the insurance business. Recently, specialist insurer CFC announced the implementation of policy encryption within its products, providing an additional layer of security for its customers.
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