Business and artificial intelligence: how an entrepreneur from Russia invented a unique risk assessment system

Risk assessment in car insurance, analysis of financial markets, work with data... in these and other similar areas, a person increasingly has a powerful competitor - artificial intelligence. Neural networks not only perform a number of tasks better than most people, but such technology is constantly being improved, each time improving their capabilities. A native of Tomsk, Evgeny Antokhov became one of the first developers of a remote assessment system to assess the technical condition of various cars, which has already begun to radically change the insurance industry. In addition, he has developed electronic systems to analyze financial risk and verify biometric data. Now, the prominent entrepreneur from Russia plans to open a similar business in the United States. Evgeny Antokhov spoke about this and his other innovations in an exclusive interview with Forum Daily.

Photo: IStock

Virtual "Insurer"

Evgeny Antokhov explains that the invariable stages of insurance have always been actions carried out exclusively offline, or “live”. This includes an object’s inspection, the identification and analysis of damage, and the assessment of the object’s current state, among other stages.

«Our initial goal was to minimize the cost of this process, since the visual inspection of vehicles involves the rental of offices, sites for diagnostics, visits of specialists to the site, and so on. To avoid this, we have developed the CarDamageTest application, with which the user can evaluate an object - in this case a car - in terms of its current state. The application not only reads the information, but also analyzes it, and then sends it to us. Thus, the process of obtaining an insurance policy can now be fully implemented online", - says Evgeny Antokhov.

The service defines 11 damage classes for 24 different vehicle segments. According to Evgeny, these are mostly minor injuries, and their quick diagnosis and analysis, carried out at no additional cost, also increases the speed of insurance payments. Like any other system based on neural networks and artificial intelligence, Evgeny Antokhov’s CarDamageTest is constantly being improved and additionally according to the business expert, its results at the moment are no different from those of a “manual” risk assessment.

«Our application is able to perform automatic object segmentation without the involvement of manual labor. This means that we do not just get an image of the car and the damage found on it. The application clearly identifies which part of the car is damaged, and at the same time is able to “align” the image, that is, cut off everything extraneous that interferes with the assessment: the background, poor lighting, other objects, and so on. Almost all companies do this part of the work manually” – he shares.

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The latest innovation of the company “Finolab.ru”, headed by Evgeny, was research in the field of the so-called “Gaussian distribution”, which makes possible the even distribution of the boundaries of an object in a photograph, ultimately "cutting off" external objects. This made it possible to increase the accuracy of damage classifications evaluated by CarDamageTest of up to 94%. As Evgeny notes, there are literally only a few companies that use such technologies.

Financial risk assessment

Another of Evgeniy’s projects was the development of artificial intelligence that analyzes credit and financial risks. As the entrepreneur notes, the model developed by his company Finolab.ru draws conclusions based on an analysis of about ten million unique transactions, which ensures its high accuracy and even the ability to predict market development trends. The next direction of the entrepreneur’s work was the computer analysis of a person’s biometric data and their comparison with what is indicated in his documents.

«This system is able to detect the potential attempt at deception and the use of false documents, and is able to verify the authenticity of the identity - for example, during a check at the airport. This technology is in demand everywhere where people need to be verified: from issuing loans by banks and tracking transactions, and ending with the security sector. Our product is built on a database of 42 million unique people's faces, so its accuracy is very high”, – Evgeny shares.

Evgeny Antokhov. Photo from personal archive

The entrepreneur notes that all the technologies used are based on the principle of so-called “machine learning”, during which artificial intelligence, receiving new data and analyzing it, constantly improves, thereby copying the learning process characteristic of the human mind. Thus, data analysis is not tied to specific algorithms - on the contrary, algorithms are continuously improved in the process, this is “machine learning”.

Rewards and difficulties

Despite the fact that in recent years Evgeny Antokhov has been focused on business development in Russia, his merits have been recognized abroad as well.

«The main problem we faced is typical for all innovative projects: the level of confidence of any business in any new development at the initial stage is quite low, and it takes time for it to be implemented on an industrial scale. In addition, all previous years we positioned ourselves as a Russian project, and worked primarily for the domestic Russian audience. Therefore, the whole current situation, including sanctions, has also hit us", - Evgeny admits.

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In addition, the result of the sanctions was a sharp decline in car sales in Russia, an area critically dependent on foreign imports. The decline in the income of Russians also did not contribute to the growth of car purchases. As a result, Evgeny’s innovative CarDamageTest project that had been created and utilized over the years, in fact, found itself in a situation where it became impossible to implement. However, Evgeny does not despair, and at the moment he plans to obtain a work permit and start a similar business in the USA as an American project. CarDamageTest, which was created over the years, in fact, found itself in a situation where it became impossible to implement it. However, Eugene does not despair, and at the moment he plans to obtain a work permit and start a similar business in the USA, already as an American project.

«Here we would like to focus on services built with the help of neural networks for the financial sector. This area is very diverse in the United States, and we are just working in this direction", - the business development manager shared his plans.

Evgeny has proven himself to be successful in Russia, and we wish him the best in developing his business and providing his expertise in the USA.

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