Over eight years ago the Axis Technical Group team had a vision of improving how data is extracted from Real Estate and Title industry documents. Partnering closely with a new customer to co-develop, the team found a way to leverage Artificial Intelligence to achieve this vision by accelerating the performance of this time-consuming process. Axis AI emerged as one of the industry’s first data extraction services dedicated to the Real Estate and Title industry based on Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing.
An Industry in Transition
The financial crisis of 2008, a severe worldwide event with lasting consequences, made a big impact on the financial services industry. Excessive risk-taking, predatory lending practices, and the bursting of the United States housing bubble culminated in a “perfect storm” that delivered economic damage on a global scale (learn more here).
The Real Estate industry will never be the same. Many new regulations were implemented thereafter. The goal was to lower the risk of fraud and ensure borrowers were better qualified to afford home purchases.
Shortly after this time Axis Technical Group recognized that many of the processes associated with the lending industry were outdated, heavily focused on manual inputs, and lacked sufficient visibility to effectively run a business. It was time for a change.
Artificial Intelligence Comes of Age
Artificial Intelligence is a technology that has been in the public realm for decades. The 1968 epic science fiction movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, captured much of the public concern over AI. That movie introduced us to HAL 9000, a computer with a human personality that captured all the fears of computers using AI to wipe out the human race.
Much has been learned about AI since that time. Yet much of the original fears remain in place, in some form or another!
Today, most people recognize that AI is more of a mathematical concept. High-powered computers process large volumes of data to help explain and understand patterns – providing outputs with greater accuracy. A “learning” concept where algorithms are programmed to continuously improve based on what outputs are considered “right.” This knowledge can be aggregated over time to deliver superior results.
Axis AI
The coming of age of Artificial Intelligence coincided perfectly with the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008. This new technology provided greater accuracy and performance to an industry now facing extreme scrutiny and concerns over risk management. With a need to improve the accuracy of extracted data utilized to process loan applications, title search records, and other real estate documents faster and with greater accuracy, Axis Technical Group sought to create a better approach. In November 2020, Axis AI was launched to meet this need.
The Axis AI engine was developed to extract the data in loan applications, title documents, and many other sources. Many data fields are located across a variety of different locations, formats, and files. Not only must this information be recognized in structured formats or documents, but as unstructured text as well.
Axis AI Becomes Axis Smart Data Extraction
On October 6, 2021, Axis Technical Group launched Axis Smart Data Extraction for Land and Title documents. This new subscription service provides a cost-effective approach for companies looking to improve efficiency by accelerating the extraction of data from unstructured documents.
Two factors led to this rebranding of Axis AI:
- Artificial Intelligence was no longer the dominant technology used to perform this service
- Smart or “intelligent” data that has been extracted with context is far more valuable than just AI-based insights
- Axis Smart Data Extraction is now a managed subscription service. Now Axis Technical Group does all the “heavy lifting” delivering an average success rate of 95 percent. Further, this performance can be achieved regularly at a scale supporting up to millions of documents a day
Read more in the Press Release announcing this new service.
As Michael Valdes, President of Axis Technical Group, stated, “The launch of Axis Smart Data Extraction is a culmination of our working with partners and existing customers to optimize the extraction of critical data points from Land and Title documents. Our new subscription service offers a compelling value proposition for companies that can close more business with faster access to more accurate data.”