Heroes in Business - Enhanced Experian Ascend Technology Platform Transforms Software for Credit Fraud and Analytics. Experian.com

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Enhanced Experian Ascend Technology Platform™ Transforms Software for Credit, Fraud and Analytics, Shri Santhanam, EVP, GM Software Platforms and AI. Listen as David Cogan, Host of the Heroes Show and Founder of Eliances entrepreneur community learns all the facts about this important topic.

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. and so many things happening within the world and i'm extremely excited too about our next guest and by the way it has to do with the word that's the hottest probably single word or initials that's taking place all over the world and that is ai so i'd like to welcome um to the show is sheree he is the executive vice president gm softwares and AI with Experian.com. And Experian.com is one of the sponsors of the Alliance's Hero Show. So welcome back to the show, Sheree. In fact, since we last spoke, we've continued to see dramatic growth in awareness around generative AI. What impact has it really had though on Experian and its business?

Well, thank you for having me, Festin. It's great to be back, David. AI and generative AI are really important topics for Experian. At Experian, we have a culture built on innovation, and we have among the most valuable data sets on the planet. And we see AI and generative AI as a really important vehicle and amplifying the impact of that for both businesses and consumers. businesses and consumers. We take that responsibility very seriously and we want to do that in a safe and responsible way while amplifying the impact of our data. Now, with AI and gendered AI in particular, over the last year, we've seen an interesting shift in the market and the application of generative AI. We've moved from a world where we've mostly been

in POC land in the market to actually now in a game of production scale value and impact. And at Experian, we've made a number of the investments to be able to drive impact at scale. And particularly with AI and generative AI, it's easy to produce or kick off POCs, which seem like they might be interesting. But when you start to scale and take this forward, you run into a host of operational scaling regulatory issues, which really are important issues to be navigated. We've invested ahead of the curve, and we have a few important things out there in operational. First, we have launched our Ascend technology platform, which I will talk about later,

which leverages AI and generative AI and brings the power of AI to many of our customers in a seamless and integrated way. Also, more broadly with AI, we have launched efforts where to our consumers, we're bringing the power of generative AI in credit education. And we have many of our customers, a significant portion of the 70 million customers we have in our experience marketplace benefiting from interactions on credit education with a gendered AI system that we have out there. And also internally more broadly, we have a number of our software engineers leveraging GenAI to build innovation products and applications.

And finally, we're also bringing products to our clients in the B2B space, which leverage the power of GenAI through our Ascend technology platform. So a lot going on in this space, and it's really been a key priority for our business, and we're coming out with a set of products and services which bring this impact to our clients. That's great to hear. I can't even imagine how one even stays up to date with everything coming out. It's like light speed. I don't know if there's been anything else that's come out so much faster to the entire world, right? I agree. You know, so it's been, you know, phenomenal hearing you share this information. By the way,

again, to your listening and watching me, David Kogan, host of the Alliance's Hero Show. Make sure that you go to Alliance.com to check out past episodes of me interviewing Cherie and other executives at Experian. Make sure that you go to Experian.com. That's E-X-P-E-R-I-A-N.com. So, Sheree, with that, talk to us about the advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI are an integral part to experience offerings. So with that, how has the integration of these technologies provided better outcomes? Because that's what we want to see for your clients across these various industries. Yes, we listen to our clients. And one of the common themes we've been hearing over the last several months is our customers said they wanted integrated solutions that could provide a seamless user experience and enable greater agility. So we brought together our best in class data, superior analytics and cutting edge technology combined with AI to do just that with our Experian Ascend technology platform. This consolidated platform allows our clients to simplify the integration and usability of

solutions across the lending lifecycle and across departments, geographies, while also enhancing automation. A lot of the business and client outcomes we're focusing on relate to fraud, credit decisioning, and analytics, but the possibilities are much broader. In essence, the platform's helping clients stop fraudsters and stop them in their tracks a lot faster. It's helping automate the deployment of models for acquisition, originations, customer management, targeting.

It's helping enhance security and it's addressing data scientist toil. But that's just the beginning. What we believe and we have the vision of this Ascend technology platform really being the go-tousive to financial services. But what we'd like to do is change the dynamic with our approach to bringing this platform across. That's just great. That's such valuable information to be able to share with our audience on that. And you mentioned too about the Ascend platform um when i understand that transforms software for credit fraud and analytics within experience is that right that is correct yes um what about uh data technology and ai are the core to experience offerings so with that could you please share with us some specific examples maybe where these technologies significantly have improved a client's financial operations or decision making process?

That's a great question. I think you're asking me to make it specific and where does the client impact come from? on the platform we shared. It's being leveraged by over 1,500 clients globally and processing over 14 million credit reports daily and billions of credit and phone transactions per year now. So it is operating fully at scale. In North America alone, more than 8,000 registered users from 80 clients access over 12 petabytes of data weekly for analytical purposes so we're talking about massive scale here and we're on a very strong

journey an example of clients using our platform is one example is lender specialized FinTech offering contemporary financing solutions for small businesses it's harnessing the power of the platform to enhance competitiveness and informed decision-making. And by using Experian's platform, they've significantly bolstered their agility and competitive edge. It's helped them deliver solutions at scale across the lending lifecycle. And the result, it's been able to improve the acquisitions and mitigate losses, and it's

ultimately helped Lender double its business over the past year. So it's made a significant contribution. So meaningful impact, and consequently to the end consumers as well. We believe by creating this impact with the lenders and providing more sophisticated lending. It also drives financial inclusion with consumers. And so there's a win-win-win cross. Well, that's great, Sheree. Such important information,

especially again, what's going on in the world of all this going on with AI. Sheree, Executive VP, GM, what's going on in the world of all this going on with AI. Cherie, Executive VP, GM, software platforms, and AI for Experian. Make sure that you go to Experian.com. That's E-X-P-E-R-I-A. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show.