Deep Learning approach to text analysis to drive
efficiencies in investment research
TORONTO, ON and BOSTON, MA, Aug. 26,
2016 /PRNewswire/ - Manulife's Lab of Forward Thinking
(LOFT) is collaborating with indico data solutions, a Boston-based company that specializes in Deep
Learning. This collaboration is part of a strategic effort to
leverage best-in-class products and accelerate business adoption of
innovative technologies such as Artifical Intelligence (AI),
blockchain and virtual reality.
Manulife's LOFT will use indico's platform to develop an
artificial intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning tool to analyze
unstructured financial data. Using Deep Learning, Manulife will be
able to analyze data from news articles, analyst reports and other
similar sources and present recommendations that could help
investment researchers and portfolio managers make more informed
decisions faster than ever before.
"Deep Learning, while proven in the realms of the Facebook's and
Google's of the world, is just starting to come into its own as an
enterprise capability," said Slater Victoroff, indico CEO and
co-founder. "We have spent the past few years building a platform
that significantly lowers the barriers of use around Deep Learning
and this opens up tremendous potential around unstructured data
analytics. John Hancock and
Manulife are on the leading edge looking to more fully utilize
their unstructured data assets to better serve their various
constituents."
Manulife's LOFT is using indico's Deep Learning platform to
decipher natural language and more efficiently train the computer
to extract insights that can be tailored to each analyst's
individual requirements – one of indico's core
strengths. Manulife - and under its John Hancock brand
in the United States – has
established a global network of LOFTs in Boston, Toronto and Singapore.
"indico will help us accelerate our use of Deep Learning to
improve the decision-making capabilities of our analysts, portfolio
managers and researchers," said Greg Framke, Executive Vice
President and Chief Information Officer, Manulife. "By introducing
new capabilities that we know will add to our user experience and
overall impact we will improve the customer experience."
The announcement follows on Manulife LOFT's recent collaboration
with Nervana Systems to build the next generation of intelligent
applications.
"Though it's early, we are now starting to see some compelling
opportunities revolving around deep learning powered applications
that can help knowledge workers become much more efficient," said
Vishal Daga, Chief Customer Officer,
indico. "We are continuing to invest in our product
capabilities to make it easier for our customers to deploy our
product in this vein especially in the context of the financial
services industry. We are thrilled about the innovative work
that the Manulife team has been doing and look forward to
continuing our partnership with them."
About indico
indico provides a state-of-the-art
machine learning platform for text and image analysis that can be
deployed in the cloud or on premise and utilized via a simple to
use web service. This, for the first time, enables companies to
automatically extract meaningful insight from unstructured data at
scale regardless of their size or capability. Furthermore, indico's
platform capabilities enable its customers to quickly develop
highly accurate new models that are specific to their needs in a
fraction of the time and effort that would be otherwise
needed. indico is privately held and headquartered in
Boston, MA. For more information,
visit https://indico.io/.
About the Lab of Forward Thinking
Manulife and John
Hancock's Lab of Forward Thinking (LOFT) explores emerging
technologies, new business processes and consumer needs to deliver
innovative solutions. Through LOFT labs in Boston, Singapore and Toronto, teams discover, incubate and
accelerate new technologies, products, services and processes. The
fail-fast culture gives every idea a fighting chance to succeed.
Follow the LOFT on Facebook, as well as on Twitter and Instagram at
@InnovateForward.
About Manulife
Manulife Financial Corporation
is a leading international financial services group providing
forward-thinking solutions to help people with their big financial
decisions. We operate as John Hancock in the United States, and Manulife
elsewhere. We provide financial advice, insurance and wealth
and asset management solutions for individuals, groups and
institutions. At the end of 2015, we had approximately 34,000
employees, 63,000 agents, and thousands of distribution partners,
serving 20 million customers. At the end of June 2016, we had $934
billion (US$718 billion) in
assets under management and administration, and in the previous 12
months we made more than $25.4
billion in benefits, interest and other payments to our
customers. Our principal operations are in Asia, Canada
and the United States where we
have served customers for more than 100 years. With our
global headquarters in Toronto,
Canada, we trade as 'MFC' on the Toronto, New
York, and the Philippine stock exchanges and under '945' in
Hong Kong. Follow Manulife on Twitter @ManulifeNews or visit
www.manulife.com or www.johnhancock.com.
SOURCE Manulife Financial Corporation