AI | Innovation Challenge

AI Innovation Challenge participants

The seven-week sprint will shortly commence, with participating tech companies presenting their proposed solutions to this year’s use case. The Challenge tasks participants to address a use case that meets the current need of financial and professional services (FPS) by advancing the development of innovative AI solutions in the face of evolving digital threats.  

Working across the sprint, participating techs will engage in weekly 1:1 themed discussions with participating FPS to enhance their solutions and ensure they reflect the needs of industry. 

This year’s use case was developed alongside Challenge Partner Microsoft. It asks “how can AI prevent online fraud at the earliest possible stage by identifying and tracking fake identities – including synthetic identities and image or audio deepfakes?”  

The City of London Corporation and Microsoft are pleased to announce that a variety of FPS will participate in this year’s AI Innovation Challenge. They are Checkout.com, Clear.Bank, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG), NatWest, Revolut, HSBC, Nationwide and Mastercard. Representatives will collaborate with tech companies whose solutions can address the use case. Following a competitive application process, The City of London Corporation and Microsoft team are delighted to introduce the tech companies taking part in this year’s Challenge. They are SureCert, Legal-Pythia LLP, Athenian Tech, Reality Defender, Corsound AI, Sumsub, Ask Silver, Sightengine, Datambit and iProov.  

Participants will be supported by the City of London Corporation and Microsoft, as well as the Challenge Supporting Partners Department for Business and Trade, NayaOne and London & Partners. There will be a public showcase event at Guildhall on 4th December to highlight the Challenge’s key learnings and achievements, as well as some of the solutions enhanced across the sprint.  

Background

Financial and professional services (FPS) are at the vanguard of investing in and adopting AI technologies, with businesses harnessing the benefits of AI across priority areas including improving customer experience, fraud detection and efficiency.

At the same time, AI has greatly increased the capabilities of those inflicting cybercrimes and fraud on FPS firms both in terms of creating new forms of attack, but also in increasing the volume and impact of those attacks.

In response to AI lowering the barrier to entry for cyber criminals and the anticipated increase in AI enabled crimes, this year's Innovation Challenge will aim to ensure FPS can better draw upon innovative AI solutions to strengthen their cyber security and/or fraud defences to combat the threats now being faced. 

Following a series of engagement with representatives from across the technology and FPS ecosystem, the use case for the AI Innovation Challenge 2024 has been identified. It asks:

 “How can AI prevent online fraud at the earliest possible stage by identifying and tracking fake identities such as synthetic identities and image or audio deepfakes?”

AI offers a tremendous opportunity for financial services. In fact, the sector is at the vanguard of adoption of AI, with many already using the technology to enhance a variety of applications and services across their business.

However, the evolution of generative AI has lowered the barrier to entry for threat actors who are increasingly able to commit online fraud on a larger, more impactful scale. AI-generated fake identities are one method on the rise, with one report suggesting that deepfake incidents increased 700% in fintech in 2023.

Similarly, deepfake images and audio risk enhancing and increasing APP fraud, which cost the public £459.7mn in 2023. Partnered with the rapid pace at which AI Innovation is advancing attack methods, it is more important than ever that financial services have the most innovative technological solutions at their disposal to protect their customers and retain their competitive advantage.