- Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Phoebus Software will deliver AI-powered tools to transform the mortgage and savings customer experience.
- The initiative will develop conversational AI interfaces that provide fast, accurate responses to complex queries.
- This partnership will embed specialist academic expertise into Phoebus, accelerating innovation in mortgage and savings technology.
Aston University and financial technology provider Phoebus Software have joined forces to develop the UK’s first suite of generative AI-powered tools for banks, building societies and lenders to service mortgage and savings accounts.
The Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) project will enhance and revolutionise the way customers and agents interact with Phoebus’ mortgage and savings software, introducing intelligent conversational interfaces capable of delivering real-time, personalised support.
Across multiple industries, older, ‘legacy’ software platforms are difficult to adapt and maintain, and users often need to spend considerable time navigating complex data across multiple screens. To help tackle the challenges of ageing software, Phoebus has already made a multi-million pound investment to eradicate these issues.
To create new tools for Phoebus and its latest online ‘Software as a Service’ products, the KTP project brings together the company’s technology developers with Aston University’s AI and digital transformation experts. The combined team will apply the latest academic advances in natural language processing, metadata generation and data mining.
The AI-powered tools developed will allow users to have natural, intuitive ‘conversations’ with Phoebus’ mortgage and savings technology. This will modernise what is traditionally a complex and opaque experience into one that is seamless and customer-focused, so servicing is more efficient, user-friendly and responsive.
Robin Jeffery, chief technology officer at Phoebus Software, said: “For our new and existing clients across mortgage and savings, we’re looking to enrich an already market-leading solution with more intuitive and responsive functionality that provides enhanced interaction with concise data and richer responses.
“As a technology-driven business always looking to push boundaries, our long-standing relationship with Aston University’s College of Engineering and Physical Sciences means this KTP is the perfect fit to help reimagine our innovative technology platform so we can offer solutions that truly disrupt and take the lead in the market. Alongside the work we’re doing to embed intelligent automation and user-centric design across our product, this project will further improve the customer experience for our clients and boost productivity.”
Phoebus is working with researchers in The Sir Peter Rigby Digital Futures Institute. Established at the intersection between the engineering, health and social sciences, the Institute’s growing footprint in the digital technology space and track record for delivering game-changing AI tools for businesses is spearheading Aston University’s contribution to the economic regeneration of Birmingham and the West Midlands.
Professor Abdul Sadka, director of The Sir Peter Rigby Digital Futures Institute at Aston University, said: “Co-creating innovative solutions for finance sector challenges using our expertise in AI data analytics will be very rewarding for our institute. We’re bringing together a nationally leading academic team who are at the forefront of AI/GenAI technologies and multimodal data analytics to really push the boundaries of what digital technologies can achieve in this space.”
The project will be supervised by Dr Philip Weber, lecturer in Computer Science and member of the Aston Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Applications (ACAIRA) and the Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics (AIFL).
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, funded by Innovate UK, are collaborations between a business, a university and a highly qualified research associate. The UK-wide programme helps businesses to improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills. Aston University is a sector-leading KTP provider, ranked first for project quality, and joint first for the volume of active projects.