Author:  Paul Heywood, Chief Data & Analytics Officer, UK, Equifax

At Equifax we have a clear purpose, to help people live their financial best. How do we do that? By reducing friction for our customers and their clients at every stage of the insights supply chain – from taking data in (data ingestion), understanding what to do (insights generation), and acting on the data (deployment). We’ve accomplished this purpose through giving businesses access to high quality data. Today, a seismic shift – a confluence of technology, regulations and customer needs – means that whilst data is crucial, data on it’s own is not enough. To better serve clients and their customers, Equifax has invested heavily in innovative technologies and Data Science in order that we are able to extract the maximum value from our data. One technology is grabbing the headlines  – artificial intelligence. 

According to an analysis of more than 400 use cases from across industries and functions, the McKinsey Global Institute projected artificial intelligence will generate $831.3 billion in potential value for the banking, insurance, and telecommunications industries alone. 

To help make sense of the deluge of information that’s available on AI we’re going to take a look at some narrow uses of AI, specifically focusing on the AI challenges that our customers in regulated businesses will come up against, and how they can overcome them. In our Data Science Series of blog posts and articles we’ll share our own innovations in AI and explainable AI, look at ethics and AI, and share the latest innovations from our Data Science Lab.

Whether you’re interested in innovations in credit risk analytics or curious about artificial intelligence, you can follow the series to read about how the scientists at Equifax are using AI to transform the insights supply chain in order to reduce information asymmetry for our clients and their customers.

It’s an exciting time at Equifax. AI – in conjunction with advanced decisioning platforms, big data and our expertise – is opening up new doors never before thought possible, and we hope to give you an inside look into what’s next.