BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

This Week In China Tech: AI Disrupting Insurance Claims, China Opens Airspace For Drones And More

This article is more than 5 years old.

We’re back! After a short holiday, we have a lot to catch up on. AI made huge leaps and has made insurance claims 176,000 times more efficient than humans, China has opened their low-altitude airspace for the booming drone industry, and classrooms are getting quantified using AI and brain research. Let’s get you the news.

AI handles insurance claims in one second vs 49 hours

Yes, you read that correctly. Today, an insurance claim with Ant Insurance, the insurance arm of Alibaba-backed Ant Financial, takes 49 hours to process, but they just announced a new artificial intelligence powered claims systems that handles claims in one second (that’s 176,000 times more efficient .)

If you haven’t been paying attention to the news for the last 24 months, you may not know that AI has started to replace many jobs in the information sector and China is leading the charge across that board. This week’s announcement (article in Chinese) by Ant Insurance is not only more efficient because it uses computers to process claims, but it also solves one of the largest issues in the insurance and claims industry: accuracy and consistent data collection.

Think about the largest group that needs to file claims. These are generally older people who aren’t as confident or adept in using modern technology. Ant Insurance’s AI system has implemented smart guides while you claim your insurance to ensure that no matter who files the claim, they are sure they are submitting enough information so that the claim can be handled correctly the first time. This alleviates the need for human intervention, returned claims to gather more information or clear up any confusion in the process.

I hope this technology makes its way out of China and into the rest of the insurance world. Insurance claims are one of the most frustrating parts of using insurance and ultimately the reason you buy insurance in the first place.

Chinese airspace rules relax and drones entering fast

Airspace in China has always been a contentious topic. If you’ve ever flown in China, you’ve most likely experienced the consistent irregularities, canceled flights and delays without reason. Most of these issues stem from China’s tight grip on their airspace, but those rules are about to change. China recently announced (article in Chinese) a new "low-altitude" airspace security system that will be deployed by 2020 and the government is asking for private capital to join the development efforts. The system will provide more efficient flight-planning data, new meteorology data, and will advance rescue systems across the nation.

This isn’t the first time China has attempted to develop their airspace. In 2010, the Chinese government passed a similar act, but local municipalities were unsure about how to implement non-governmental initiatives other than private flights for very wealthy individuals and businesses. However, with the recent boom in drone/unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), mainly lead by DJI, this week’s announcement is expected to be a huge opportunity for the private sector. Many of my past articles have covered China’s tech giants focus on deploying UAVs in their daily operations (Ele.me, JD.com), but the UAV industry has also become one of the largest investment categories in the venture capital world at the same time. According to the Forward-Looking Industry Research Institution (“前瞻产业研究院”) the UAV market in China is predicted to grow to 14.82 billion RMB or $2.25 billion by 2020.

The most exciting part about this is that it’s an entire country that is adopting a new regulation to allow for advanced UAVs and data gathering from lower altitudes. Not to mention that it’s China, the world’s most populous country. This regulation and the UAV innovations that will come in the months and years to follow are going to be very interesting indeed.

China classrooms now studying student brains

A new technology solution was released this week (article in Chinese) by Tomorrow Advancing Life Education Group called WISROOM, and it's using AI and brain science to unlock hidden opportunities in the classroom. The WISROOM system is designed to quantify classroom interactions, content delivery, and teacher and student relations via image, voice and other visual analyses. WISROOM then analyzes this data using scientific evaluations to track the frequency and identities of students raising their hands for questions to assess if more attention and support is required.

The vision of WISROOM is to create a universal teaching quality evaluation system. “Data is the foundation for education specialization,” stated Bangxin Zhang CEO of TAL Education Group in the source article. Once you get the detailed data of every student by using AI tech, teaching activities can be individualized to teach students based on their aptitude. WISROOM is not meant to replace teachers, rather it wants to solve the issue of a teacher’s inability to remember the massive amount of information generated every day in the classroom. The WISROOM AI will become an assistant to create a learning portrait for every student and then assist the teacher and school to adapt the lessons to each student.

Zhang also said, “The purpose to combine AI and education is to solve the problem of scarcity of excellent teacher resources.” In China, most of the experienced teachers flock to developed cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, etc. This issue is not unique to China, and a tool like WISROOM can surely help educators, students and families around the world if it is successful.

That's it for this week in China Tech. If you have any stories you think we should cover next week, feel free to message me and make sure to check back for more stories coming from China next week!

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedInCheck out my website