Ping An Insurance of China : GammaLab Wins Global AI Machine Reading Comprehension Competition

HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, Dec. 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or the "Group") (HKEX: 2318) (SSE: 601318) is pleased to announce that OneConnect, a subsidiary of the Group, ranked first in one of the world's most authoritative machine-reading comprehension challenges — the Stanford Question Answering Dataset 2.0 (SQuAD). GammaLab Institute of Artificial Intelligence (GammaLab), owned by OneConnect, scored 83.435, close to the human performance level of 86.831, way ahead of other companies in the challenge.  

SQuAD2.0 is comprised of more than 100,000 questions with over 50,000 new, unanswerable questions written by crowdworkers to look similar to answerable ones. To do well on SQuAD2.0, systems must not only answer questions when possible, but also determine when no answer is supported by the paragraph and abstain from answering.

According to Ping An, its AI model could be used in various scenarios to respond to customer inquiries.

For example, when agents leave a job, their clients are looked after by newly appointed agents. The handover process takes time as the new agents need to study different back-dated policies. GammaLab's model will greatly enhance the reading comprehension for agents to help improve their efficiency in customer service.

The model could also be used in the banking insurance scenario, as it takes time to train banking brokers on the different types of insurance products. GammaLab's reading comprehension skills could save the brokers' time in providing qualified services for potential customers. In July, OneConnect officially launched intelligent marketing solution Gamma eExpert based on its advanced voice recognition technology and reading comprehension technology, helping sales to shorten their service time by 30% on average and reducing the disputes caused by human errors.

Another scenario is internet arbitration in universal financial inclusion. Small loan companies tend to turn to online arbitration, which is expensive and takes time to resolve, under the current peer-to-peer lending market. With the reading comprehension skill of GammaLab, the arbitrator will finish a case quicker, reducing the cost for arbitration.

Jessica Tan, Deputy CEO, COO and CIO of Ping An Group, said, "Our consistent focus and investment in technology R&D is paying off. Ping An will fully utilize its proprietary AI technology in several core areas of the banking and financial sector, further paving the way for an increasingly broad application of the technology."

This is not the first time GammaLab has finished ahead of its rivals. Established less than two years ago, GammaLab has already achieved great results. In May 2018, GammaLab's micro-expression recognition technology made a major breakthrough, topping the list on both Arousal(emotional intensity) and Valence(positive and negative) in emotional intensity, ranking first globally in the One-Minute Gradual Emotion Challenge by the University of Hamburg. In June 2018, GammaLab also ranked first with an accuracy of 94.46% in the EmotioNet Challenge by the Ohio State University.

Ping An is committed to becoming a world-leading technology-powered financial services group. Striving to capture the opportunities arising from the development of smart technologies, the Group will further its strategy to pursue "finance + technology" and explore "finance + ecosystem" to achieve technology-powered business transformation, optimize products and service experiences, maintain stable and healthy business growth and create greater value for its customers and shareholders.

About Ping An

Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. ("Ping An") is a world-leading technology-powered personal financial services group. With 182 million customers and 513 million Internet users, Ping An is one of the largest financial services companies in the world.

Ping An has two over-arching strategies 'pan financial assets' and 'pan healthcare', which focus on the provision of financial and healthcare services through our integrated financial services platform and our five ecosystems in financial services, healthcare, auto services, real estate services and Smart City services. Our aim is to provide customers and internet users with innovative and simple products and services. As China's first joint stock insurance company, Ping An Group is committed to upholding the highest standards of corporate reporting and corporate governance. The company is listed on the stock exchanges in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Ping An ranked 10th in Forbes' 2018 Global 2000, and it ranked 29th in Fortune Magazine's 2018 Global 500 Leading Companies. Ping An also ranked 43rd in 2018 WPP Millward Brown's BrandZTM Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands. For more information, please visit www.pingan.cn

About OneConnect

OneConnect is a leading Fintech SaaS provider of advanced technology-enabled business solutions to small and medium-sized financial institutions. Our solutions are based on the world-class technologies including AI, Blockchain, Cloud platform, and Biometrics Identification. Currently, OneConnect has 101 products in four business disciplines including Digital Banking Solutions, Digital Insurance Solutions, Digital Investment Solutions, and SaaS Cloud Platform, covering sales, product development, risk management, operations and technology. They are a comprehensive Fintech solution provider that has coverage of all major financial industries as well as front, middle and back office functions.

Some of OneConnect's major achievements include a 99.8% recognition accuracy in facial recognition and 99%+ in VPR accuracy. They are world-class in the aspects of voiceprint, micro-expression and NLP recognition. OneConnect is also one of the earliest companies to develop and apply blockchain technology in China, exploring 12 application scenarios including finance, medical healthcare, customs, trade, real estate and auto.

As of the end of 2018 Q3, OneConnect has served over 483 banks, 42 insurers, and nearly 2500 non-bank financial institutions with advanced fintech solutions. Earlier this year, they completed a Round A financing with a post-investment valuation of 7.5 billion dollars.

For enquiries, please contact:

Gareth Hewett @ [phone] or [e-mail]

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SOURCE Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd.