Technology reduces the amount of data and time required for training as well as the cost of specialised hardware setups.
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group (SMBC Group) has started using an AI system that incorporates the advanced natural language processing technology. The system was developed jointly by SMBC Group, The Japan Research Institute, Limited and Allganize.
The System will first be used by the call centers of SMBC Nikko Securities and Sumitomo Mitsui Card to help ensure that operators can make quicker, more accurate responses to customer inquiries.
SMBC Group has been using AI systems to achieve better operational efficiency.
However, SMBC Group has been considering the introduction of new solutions to further enhance efficiency.
Meanwhile, Silicon Valley Digital Innovation Lab (which was previously set up to conduct advanced technology surveys on the West Coast of the United States) became aware of a unique natural language processing technology developed by US startup Allganize, Inc.
BERT is the de facto standard for advanced natural language processing and has attracted a great deal of attention for its high accuracy. However, training BERT is computationally intensive and expensive due to its complexity and the large amount of training data that needs to be processed to achieve a high accuracy.
The natural language processing technology developed by Allganize for the System combines a proprietary language model based on BERT utilising the pre-training method of ALBERT with self-supervised learning technology specialized in question-answering unique to Allganize.
This processing technology reduces the amount of data and time required for training as well as the cost of specialised hardware setups. In the proof-of-concept verification by the SMBC Group, it was confirmed that the learning workload is significantly reduced compared to a conventional system. The SMBC Group’s practical application of such natural language processing technology will be the first use case among domestic financial groups.
In addition to support for the operators at call centres, the financial institute are planning to expand the application of the System to services throughout the entire SMBC Group. Going forward, the SMBC Group will continue to work together to actively utilize cutting-edge technology to improve operational efficiency.
