By Samantha Ehlinger, Staff Writer

Photo: William Luther /San Antonio Express-News

USAA invests in Austin artificial intelligence software firm

Financial services giant USAA is investing in Austin-based artificial intelligence company CognitiveScale which has developed software that can predict what customers want before they even ask for it.

The software company delivers what it calls industry-specific machine intelligence software, which can emulate human learning by pulling in data from different sources, market events and user behavior to foresee what products customers might want, CognitiveScale said Tuesday in a news release.

People talk about artificial intelligence as man-versus-machine, generally speaking, thats been sort of the perception, said Akshay Sabhikhi, CognitiveScales CEO and co-founder. And our view is that there are so many possibilities within an organization where humans are involved, knowledgeable workers are involved, and how could you bring artificial intelligence to them to help improve their productivity?

Nathan McKinley, VP and head of corporate development for USAA, said in an email that the artificial intelligence will help help us replicate USAAs well-known member service over the phone on digital channels, which are an increasingly popular way for members to interact with USAA.

Neither company disclosed the size of USAAs investment.

Indeed, many people worry that artificial intelligence will eventually lead to jobs being automated and then to unemployment. A 2016 White House report said that 83 percent of jobs making less than $20 per hour have a high probability for automation. The report asserts, however, that humans are still smarter than artificial intelligence in many arenas.

Sabhikhi stressed that CognitiveScales offering is focused around making employees smarter and helping companies provide better customer service not slashing jobs.

CognitiveScale offers a software-as-a-service subscription model for customers in financial services, healthcare and retail. It has worked with several large banks, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Macys and Under Armour, among others, Sabhikhi said.

And many of its executives are former International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) employees. Sabhikhi served as the global leader for Smarter Care at IBM, and CognitiveScales Executive Chairman Manoj Saxena was General Manager of IBM Watson. And Founder Chief Technology Officer Matt Sanchez was the leader of IBM Watson Labs and was the first to apply IBM Watson to the financial services and healthcare industries, according to the CognitiveScale website.

Imagine being able to service you with the things that you need preemptively, without you sort of asking for them, just because it knows you, it knows you as a consumer through your journey, and offers recommendations and offers at the right time, he said.

CognitiveScale has now raised $50 million in funding to date, it also announced Tuesday. And $15 million of that total comes from USAA and several other investors Norwest Venture Partners, Intel Capital, Microsoft Ventures and The Westly Group, according to a news release.

The software USAA is installing is similar to what a customers experience on Netflix, or on Amazon.

The plan for now is to start implementing CognitiveScales offering in the banking division of USAA, Sabhikhi said, and its really around servicing their members.

We are taking a very holistic view with USAA to start small, but really think big, he said. Its important that we start small to prove that we can deliver something quick, but the goal with USAA and our vision is really fairly massive, its really to service their 12-to-15 million members that they have, and to bring the benefit of what AI can drive as the next best action and the next best offer, to the consumer.

USAA provides banking, insurance and other financial services to about 12 million customers, who are service members, veterans and their families.

In implementing the new products USAA will have a jump start from CognitiveScales 10-10-10 method, according to the press release, which helps businesses select and model their first cognitive system in 10 hours, configure that system using their own data in 10 days, and deploy it within 10 weeks.

The company has implemented products for more than 25 customers using the strategy, Sabhikhi said.

sehlinger@express-news.net

Twitter: @samehlinger

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