Flybits' Hossein Rahnama is one of our speakers at DataDay, the first-of-its-kind conference on financial data. Consumer data, data ecosystems, and data aggregation is changing the face of modern financial services. Join Adam and speakers from Plaid, Wells Fargo, Fiserv, MX, Stash, and more. Secure your spot at https://ti.to/tearsheet/tearsheets-dataday-conference-2020

The foundation for Flybits came from a research lab and Hossein's PhD research, which was about understanding context in large data sets. "I spun that off about six years ago and now, Flybits is a venture backed company headquartered in Toronto with offices in New York, San Francisco, London and Dubai," he said.

AI requires domain knowledge and the understanding of the context in which the technology finds itself. For example, it’s very hard for an AI engine to understand the needs of a parent when she’s at home versus that parent’s needs traveling across borders.

"You can train AI algorithms to understand and predict patterns but understanding that context and domain knowledge has always been an impediment," he said.

Hossein's research brought context and the world of ontologies into the AI world and then applies them to digital channels. "Your context basically determines the behavior of the experience that you’ll see on a digital channel."

Consumers have access to concierge services like Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa. But Rahnama believes the real question for banks is how to create concierge capabilities on their own channels. "Most of them want to keep their data but come up with predictive services on their own digital channels, personalizing services while keeping their customers’ data secure," he said.

"They want to be a lifestyle concierge engine for their customers."