Investing in the New Reality

EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES | BDO LLP

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EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES | BDO LLP

CASE STUDY: FLIGOO Fligoo is a big data AI company, developed in collaboration with MIT, that helps large financial institutions, FMCG brands and healthcare companies to develop predictive AI algorithms that improve channel optimisation, product recommendation and offer personalisation. ‘We handle everything from data extraction, cleansing, normalisation, visualisation, to creating and running hundreds or thousands of models, all the way to creating offers and live testing with consumers,’ says Joey Suquet, Fligoo’s EVP of Strategy and a major investor. ‘The logic behind our solution does a couple of things. One, it analyses data that our customers have on their customers to understand what products and services they’re going to need at every moment in their life cycle. Then two, we make predictions – and we can also execute – on things like

The AI family of technologies are horizontal capabilities, which can transcend vertical markets and sectors. So we can talk about RegTech, FinTech, HealthTech and all the rest, but ultimately these are pillars of value that can be delivered in particular markets, and may use a whole collection of different technologies to do that. People get very excited about new technologies, but they don’t buy into them for their newness. What they do is find utility in a particular use r case that’s inherently vertical and has some boundaries on it. The scope becomes narrower. It’s about taking a piece of technology, a very specific domain expertise, and building out a solution that takes a slice of that in both dimensions – so that you end up with a bright point of value where the horizontal technology meets the vertical need.

the best time to make outreach, the best marketing channel, and the best personalised sales speech to use for each individual customer. In an FS context, that might mean analysing all the loan and mortgage customers of a bank, and trying to identify and predict which ones are going to be a great fit for the other products and services. ‘When we talk to legacy banks, they often feel threatened by the neobanks and FinTechs. But we remind them that they are sitting on the data of millions of customers, and with a little AI at scale making offers that make sense, they could outstrip these challenger banks overnight. Sometimes the legacy banks have to learn how to get out of their own way and innovate more quickly. In one case, Fligoo assisted a Top 10 bank in North America that was looking to increase credit card penetration in its 20 million-plus customer base. Hitting ROI in 90 days, Fligoo delivered a 48% lift

lots of examples of that, from algorithms trained to trade stocks to tools that look for fraud in financial services. Its not always a computer system either. The ABS in your car, which brak e s on the ice better than you could, is also an example of ANI. So when emerging technologies really add value, they become recognised in their own right and cease to be labelled as AI any more. I think RPA, and the new category of intelligent automation tools, are good examples of this. But the recognition happens at different rates around the world. As trends sweep the globe, you can actually catch this technology being used in different categories in different places, depending on where people are on in their AI journey.

WHEN EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES REALLY ADD VALUE , THEY BECOME RECOGNISED IN THEIR OWN RIGHT AND CEASE TO BE LABELLED AS AI ANY MORE. I THINK RPA,

...ANY SAAS COMPANY WITH A PATH TO

PROFITABILITY AND A FOCUS

AND THE NEW CATEGORY OF INTELLIGENT

ON SUSTAINABLE GROWTH IS GOING TO BE INCREASINGLY ATTRACTIVE AND SOUGHT AFTER.

AUTOMATION TOOLS, ARE GOOD EXAMPLES OF THIS.

JOEY SUQUET EVP OF STRATEGY & MAJOR INVESTOR, FLIGOO

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