+65 6681 6717
67 Ayer Rajah Crescent, #02-10/17, LaunchPad @ One-North, Singapore 139950
en

What Are Some Tech Trends Facing the Legal Profession

The legal industry might not have been the quickest off the bat when it comes to embracing new technology. However, over the last couple of years, law firms have started to take note of tech trends and started to implement new and exciting tools to streamline and make tasks easier.

Of all the new tech trends in the industry, here are some of the most useful to those working in law:

Legal Research and Document Review

Legal research is something that every new lawyer will spend hundreds of hours undertaking, as they learn how to review documents properly. The problem is, particularly for new lawyers, it can be hard to find the right cases that support your argument.

Which is why the advancement of software that sifts through research for you, is becoming so important. With AI-powered software, the efficiency and accuracy of legal research is vastly improved and can be undertaken in a fraction of the time.

This software works by marking documents that are relevant to the case in question and it will then use its algorithms to find other documents that might be useful. Which means that a law firm’s case should have an increased chance of winning a case, as their research is as efficient as it can be.

Voice Typing

For most lawyers, the most tedious task in their workload is typing up reports. Often taking a few hours of a law professional’s day, this could soon become a thing of the past due to voice typing software. These assistants will type up your documents for you and will even correct grammatical errors, making for a more finessed final product.

AI Apps Giving Legal Advice

One of the most exciting tech trends to hit the legal profession are AI apps that can give legal advice. These robots are programmed with a large amount of data, which allows them to understand questions and identify the appropriate response.

This is particularly useful to the legal profession as it allows firms to add a chat robot to their website, where it can answer routine enquires without wasting the time of other lawyers. This allows them to deal with cases that need more attention.

Even better, chatbots can work 24/7 so no matter if a query is asked at 1pm or 1am, these bots will deal with the inquiry the same.

Legal Outcome Prediction

The most common question that any lawyer will hear is: “how likely are we to win?”. Which can be a difficult question depending on the complexity of the case. Now, thanks to prediction software, lawyers can give their clients a more accurate response, as this software will search through thousands of trials to give a more informed prediction.

Online Law Education

For most law students, they believe that the university education they receive is enough to prepare them for working in a law firm. However, in most cases, students will still need a large amount of training when they start in the legal profession which takes time and money.

To make life easier – for graduates and firms alike – there are now numerous online education tools that aim to teach new skills and knowledge to those looking to work in the legal profession. These tools are even useful to established lawyers who would like to add to their skills, too.

Technology might have been a scary concept for those in the legal profession. However, by adding the right apps and software to a firm, these law firms are saving time, resources and money. Which can only be a good thing for the world of law?

How is Fintech Disrupting the Finance Industry?

For those who haven’t heard of fintech, it simply refers to the technology that is being used to improve functions and services within the finance industry. This has ranged from the software used by banks to improve the handling of customer accounts to super-fast money transfers and online shopping.

Indeed, whether you call it fintech disruption or improvement, here are of the ways that technology is transforming the finance industry:

 

Customer Service AI Bots

 

Chatbots are one of the most valued programmes in modern technology, particularly for financial companies. Mainly used on websites, these bots can help to handle customer queries that can be found on their website. This means that a customer won’t need to call and use the time of a human assistant to help, which means that employee can focus on trickier customer queries.

Not only does this save money for a company, but your customers have a better overall level of satisfaction as their query is answered quickly and efficiently.

 

AI for Fraud Detection

 

Although we can now access our bank and credit card accounts anywhere thanks to smartphones, that doesn’t mean that we actively check these accounts for fraudulent activity. Which means, without fintech, we won’t see fraud until our money is gone.

Many banks and financial companies are now using AI technology to flag potential fraud as it happens. Meaning both you and your bank are alerted quickly so that you can act fast to lock and re-secure your accounts.

This is not just used for fraud with customers, though, as banks themselves use this AI technology to flag and block attacks from hackers looking to mine sensitive information, which can cost those in the finance industry millions if successful.

 

Stronger Security Through Biometrics

 

As technology advances, passwords are becoming less and less safe for protecting our sensitive data. Particularly when a large majority of us use the same password for multiple websites and accounts. Which is why fintech is working on more secure ways to protect our accounts, by implementing biometrics for security. This includes thumbprints, facial recognition, vocal patterns and irises.

Many banks are rolling out biometrics to help their customers protect their accounts, particularly on smartphones that can be stolen.

 

The Dropping Need for Brick-and-Mortar Banks

 

With more people doing their banking online, through apps and websites, there has been a drop in the demand for banks to open and maintain brick-and-mortar banks. Indeed, many banks are now looking to save money by closing banks in several towns and villages.

This isn’t always met with enthusiasm though, as many rural communities with businesses are unable to conduct all their banking online. This means they will need to travel to get to a physical bank.

While some might call it fintech disruption, there is no denying that advancements in technology are helping customers and companies alike to improve security and streamline processes. Which is particularly important with online shopping and smartphones now being a normal part of society.

How Are Digital Trends Disrupting the Finance Industry?

Although every industry has felt disruption through advances in technology, it is the finance industry that appears to have felt these digital trends the most. With the entire sector needing to develop and move forward with the times.

Here are just some of the ways that the financial sector has changed and developed in recent times:

 

Customer Personalisation 

 

When it comes to banking and financial companies, there is lots of competition. So, to obtain new customers and keep their current customer base happy, these companies are having to place a higher emphasis on personalised services and marketing.

So, to improve the customer experience, these companies are using technology to create apps and the like so that customers are always happy.

This has also seen a rise in the use of AI bots to improve customer experience. Here, many financial companies will add an AI bot to their website, where it can answer common queries for customers. As these are available 24/7, customers can get answers to questions at any time rather than waiting for a phone line to open.

 

Open Banking is Now the Norm

 

While banks have been reluctant to accept open banking, where customers can share their financial information with third parties, the customer demand for open banking is forcing these banks to make it a reality to keep customers happy.

This is particularly popular for allowing customers to use apps that can help them to track and manage their monthly spending habits in order to improve savings and help pay debts. 

 

Established Banks are Creating Their Own Challenger Brands

 

A challenger bank is a small retail bank that aims to compete with the larger banks on the market, such as Monzo. With these banks growing in popularity, many banks are losing their customers to these mobile-only banks.

To help combat this disruption, many major banks like HSBC and RBS are creating their own version of challenger banks, so that they can improve their customer base.

 

Fintech Companies Aren’t a Bad Thing

 

Although new fintech companies are indeed rivalling well-established financial companies. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not only is this encouraging companies to move with the times and improve services for customers, but to do this, many companies are teaming up with new fintech companies to share expertise. Which means the customers get the best of both worlds.

 

Cryptocurrencies are No Longer the Future

 

It seemed like cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin came out of nowhere, totally taking the world by storm. In fact, many of us thought that cryptocurrencies would be the future for us all. That was, until 2018 when the value of these currencies plummeted, bringing into question whether or not these cryptocurrencies had any long-term viability in the financial sector.

That being said, the blockchain technology that was used in cryptocurrencies is still incredibly interesting and useful. So, over the next few years, we may see this technology used in other more exciting ways in the financial sector.

 

Technology is improved every day, which means the financial sector is going to need to constantly evolve to stay relevant. Which means we can expect many notable changes in the years to come.

AI Technology: How are E-Commerce Companies Utilising it?

If you want an innovative way to drive sales and increase user experience on your website, you should be utilising artificial intelligence (AI) in your business. Indeed, AI technology is helping companies to take their business to the next level and leaving their competitors in the dust.

 

Improves the Virtual Shopping Experience

 

AI technologies can analyse the pattern of how a person shops online. The AI translation of these patterns provides a more personalised experience for the user. As a result, your website can leave a great impression on the user.

One of the biggest improvements to E-Commerce sites is the addition of chatbots and voice assistants. Depending on the website localisation, these AI tools proves that mass localisations can provide customer service in a number of languages. Hence, this AI Translation allows customers across the globe to receive personalised customer services.

 

Visual Search Engines

 

Another recent development for E-CommerceAI technologies is the visual search engine. Here users can take a photograph of their favourite products and the visual search engine will try to source where that product is sold.

Visual search engines can also be used to reverse-search an image, to help you find a better quality of that image as well as check its copyright status. You can also use an image search to find out information about a certain place or restaurant. You can do this by simply taking a photo and use the search bar to find reviews and booking information.

 

Personal Recommendations (AI)

 

The more you use a website enabled with AI technology, the more personalised your experience becomes. For instance, the website AI can help you find the best products related to your interests. It’s similar to having your own personal shopper but without the added cost!

With the recommendations calculated by your AI, shoppers can find what they’re looking for on a website with minimal fuss and time. Hence, this encourages users to repeatedly visit your website and may even recommend it to friends.

 

Voice Assistance

 

Voice assistance improves user experience, by helping users to type less and increasing the convenience. It allows users to speak to an E-Commerce site, asking them to pre-order something they use frequently. For instance, ordering more nappies via your Amazon Echo.

These AI voice assistants may offer the user a product recommendation they may like to add to their basket. Hence, making it a more personalised and efficient experience.

 

In Conclusion

 

AI technologies are vastly improving the user experience of E-Commerce sites, and it will be exciting to see where this ever-evolving technology takes our online shopping experience in the next few years.

Is AI Translation Really Changing the Industry?

As the business arena becomes more globalised, the need for localisation via translation grows and that growth fuels the need for better and more effective translation technologies (such as AI translation). As they say, necessity is the mother of all inventions. This philosophy stands true even for translation technology.

The growth in translation needs gave birth to machine translation (MT), which overcame much of the challenges posed by traditional translation processes. But new challenges keep cropping up. Fortunately, newer technologies are showing up to save the day.

One such technology is Artificial Intelligence or AI-based translation. AI translation offers distinct advantages compared to the older MT technology. For instance, it can factor in linguistic nuances and context to provide more accurate translations.

 

Already in Play

 

AI-based translation is already at play. You can see it everywhere from Google to Facebook. For instance, if you visit an international website via Google, you’ll have the option of seeing the translated version. There’s almost no human involvement or intervention here. It’s Google’s own automated translation service.

Microsoft is also offering its own real-time translation app, which can translate speech, text, and even images. What’s even more amazing is that this application can run offline, making instant translation a reality.

Even Facebook switched to AI translation as its primary approach in 2017.

One of the key benefits of AI translation is that it factors in context and entire sentences, which boosts accuracy.

 

Neural Machine Translation (NMT)

 

Traditional MT relied upon existing translations or translation memories to get the job done. However, now, we have something called Neural Machine Translation or NMT.  NMT makes use of translation memories as well. But it goes further and uses something called deep learning to boost translation accuracy.

NMT literally builds what is called an artificial neural network, sort of a like a human brain. What does that mean? Well, it means that the system can correct itself by going back, assessing, and correcting its approach or method.

On the contrary, traditional or statistical MT relies on correlation to choose the best possible translation. This method simply does not provide the same level of accuracy.

 

Conclusion

 

AI-based translation has come quite far. However, there are still some challenges to be overcome. For instance, AI translations are still plagued by grammatical inaccuracies. There are also complaints of such translations lacking nuance.

So, human translation still remains a necessity. Though AI translation may be evolving, it is too soon to predict its overall impact on the translation and localisation industry.

 

How Artificial Intelligence Works When Translating a Language

 

How-Artificial-Intelligence-Works-When-Translating-Language

Thanks to globalisation, translation is one area that’s recently been given the Artificial Intelligence treatment. So, how does AI actually aid translation?

Read More >

 

 

Worldwide Digital Transformation

Despite the fact that global digital transformation (DX) is something that all businesses must work towards, the sad truth is that most of them tend to fail in their efforts, especially when it comes to justifying the expenditure.

Now, with IDC predicting that DX expenditure across the globe will touch a mind-bending $2 trillion by 2020, it means that a good $1.6 trillion could just end up getting written off.

That begs a question – if generating ROI on worldwide digital transformation is so complex, why indulge in it in the first place?

Well, there are several reasons. To begin with, there are significant rewards that come from digitising a business and disrupting a market. If success is achieved, the concerned company will gain a significant share in the market and boost profitability, while building a sustainable business.

Secondly, if you don’t do it, your competitors are going to anyway. Finally, the causes of failure can always be overcome; it just needs better planning. Possible failure is a weak excuse.

So, if you’re wondering how you can achieve digital transformation across your global business, here are a few strategies.

 

Have a digital vision

 

You need a strategy that can get the buy-in of those at the top. This vision must be in alignment with the entire business for the purpose of a smoother execution. More importantly, it must be made clear that DX is more than marketing or technology; it’s a complete change in the way your organisation conducts business.

 

Mark business drives

 

Conduct an assessment of whether you want to focus on business innovation or technology operations. Find out where your position is within that spectrum. Look at your operations from the perspective of process, technology, and people. Consider the inefficiencies that currently exist in your business processes.

 

Assess and give importance to IT initiatives

 

What are you aiming for? Are you looking to improve your internal processes or do you want to boost your project management and technology standards? Is your focus going to be on improving customer satisfaction and value by delivering the right experiences, products, services, and content?

These are important questions to ask.

 

Ensure alignment

 

Make sure there are no gaps. Determine what technologies you need and train your workforce accordingly for better implementation. If there are skill gaps, arrange for proper training and focus on developing talents.

Reinforce your IT department with entrepreneurs, strategic visionaries, and project planners; not just technology enablers.

 

Alter IT strategy based on need

 

DX is an ongoing phase, which means priorities will change. Recognise this and adjust strategies whenever necessary.

Once you manage to create an effective digital strategy, you can reap the benefits of working in an improved digital workplace and having greater stakeholder engagement. All you need is proper planning for operational efficiency, customer value, and growth/innovation.

How Artificial Intelligence Works When Translating a Language

It’s clear that businesses, today, have to make the most of technology to stay in the race. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and other such technology allow businesses to gain a competitive edge in a crowded marketplace. Thanks to globalisation, translation is one area that’s recently been given the AI treatment.

So, how does AI actually aid translation? Well, that’s what we are here to find out.

 

It’s Called Machine Translation

 

AI-aided translation is called machine translation. What it does is that it converts text from the source language to text in the output language. There exist a range of machine translation programs that businesses can use for their translation needs.

However, the two most common happen to be SMT-based i.e. Statistical Machine Translation and RBMT-based i.e. Rule-Based Machine Translation.

The latter operates on the idea that language is all about syntactic and grammatical rules. So, in order to work, these programs refer to bilingual dictionaries for the specified languages. These dictionaries are composed of linguistic rules that apply to the sentence structures in each of the specified languages. Then, there are rules to help the program link the sentence structures of each language.

However, the process is time-consuming as new requirements have to be met each time a new language is paired with the source language. Even so, RMBT is effective when it comes to pairing languages with very different word orders, such as English to Chinese.

On the other hand, SMT works on the concept of probabilities. Google Translator is an example of this. What the tool does it refers to a set of target segments and chooses the most probable segments as a match to the source segment. To put it simply, Google Translator translates by looking at the highest statistical probability.

SMT works better than RMBT because it can accommodate a wide-range of languages. It does not depend on an extensive list of resources to get the job done.

So, that’s how AI-translation works.

 

The Future of AI Translation

 

Machine translation will definitely evolve as time goes by. However, human translation is still very relevant as context plays a major role in effective translation. This is completely dependent on human involvement.

For instance, colloquialism is something that machines still cannot figure out. So, machine translation is still primarily a tool aimed at simplifying the process, rather than taking it over.