Industry Innovators Interview: Attestiv

Industry Innovators Interview: Attestiv Modern Insurance caught up with Nicos Vekiarides, CEO and CO-Founder of Attestiv, to see how Attestiv are looking to do things differently for the industry.

QHow would you describe Attestiv in three words?

ADigital, media, authenticity.

QWhy Attestiv?

AAt Attestiv, we are on a mission to put provable authenticity into all digital media.

Deepfakes and AI-enhanced images are not only a social threat, they are also an IT threat that affects organisations making actionable decisions based on photos and media. As AI tools to edit media proliferate and organisations undergo digital transformation, exposure is ever-increasing and calls for a new set of tools and platforms to protect organisations from fraud and/or reputational damage.

Utilising artificial intelligence and blockchain technology, Attestiv assures the validity of digital media captured by any person or device - helping organisations of all types build trust and transform their business with new services, cost savings, and fraud prevention.

Tampered data and altered photos expose organisations and businesses to fraud and security threats. Attestiv provides protection from these growing threats by both preventing and detecting any falsified or fake photos, videos, and other media.

The Attestiv Platform operates within an ecosystem across companies, providers, partners, and end-users. The platform serves as a foundation for digital transformation in the multi-billion dollar insurance (carriers, agencies, adjusters, etc.), IoT, public safety and other sectors.

QWhat makes Attestiv different from other start-up companies?

AWe are different in 4 ways: 1. Our mission and focus is to protect organisations from a new breed of photo and video fraud that until now has not been well addressed. 2. We are an experienced team that has led prior startup successes and public companies with extensive cloud, SaaS, storage, cybersecurity & enterprise expertise. 3. The Attestiv platform is powered by patent-pending technology. It enables advancements in self-service, autonomous and outsourced processes by analysing and validating information including photos, videos and data. Our technology includes perceptual fingerprinting technology for digital media, enterprise security, a ledger-agnostic and storage-agnostic architecture. 4. We integrate seamlessly into existing processes. Besides offering applications, we provide APIs that work with organisations’ existing processes and workflows. In mature industries, we find it is very important we allow customers to maintain existing processes that use digital media and data - but with an added level of protection.

QWhat would you identify as the gap in the market that Attestiv aims to fill?

AFor insurance markets, we are addressing the substantial fraud that exists in P&C insurance (estimated to be $40 Billion annually in the US alone). While difficult to get a precise breakdown, a meaningful portion of that is due to exaggerated claims, fake claims and missed opportunities to reduce claims leakage.

For related markets, we prevent and detect the growing emergence of photo and video fraud, disinformation, and help give organisations confidence in building out their digital transformation plans. With over one trillion photos captured annually - many of which are to fulfill business purposes and are taken by mobile phones - there is a strong need to discern what is real, from what is fake.

Beyond fraud protection, we enable much broader use of selfservice processes for insurance, using tamper-proof photo and video workflows from mobile devices, saving costs and creating exceptional mobile user experiences. Specifically, Attestiv has enabled selfservice quoting, claims and renewals for several insurance agencies using authenticated, tamper-proof photos taken by customers using their own mobile devices. The cost and time this process saves is considerable, and a trusted foundation like Attestiv is a key enabler.

With Attestiv, a variety of stakeholders in the insurance ecosystem benefit from (1) fraud reduction, (2) significant time and cost savings, (3) a mobile-first customer experience and (4) enterprise security, interoperability and compliance. These stakeholders’ range across insurance agencies, carriers, independent adjusters and insured customers.

A good example of this is our inspection app for independent adjusters., to whom we offer a mobile app that reduces on-site property inspection time by more than 50%. This is done by reducing photo report generation and email submission time to the carrier, and by using validated photos, all parties (adjuster, carrier, customer) benefit. I suppose in this day and age where a pandemic is a new reality, it would be important to note that Attestiv provides a “touchless” experience, avoiding the typical interactions required for these processes.

QWhat were the main challenges on standing out and establishing yourself in a competitive market?

ABringing our technology into a regulated, enterprise business space, such as insurance requires significant domain expertise in IT, cybersecurity and privacy -- and products that offer compliance with regulations. We deliver a solution that is tailored for our target market.

Another challenge is providing customers instant gratification, knowing that the fraud savings are a long-term ROI. In this regard, the savings that we bring through tamper-proof, selfservice processes, not only helps insurance organisations save costs, but also improves efficiencies immediately.

QHow is the wider industry responding to challenges in your area of the market, and how are you tackling these?

AWhile there are projects to combat the emergence of fake photos and videos with detection technologies - that alone isn’t enough. AI tools are making fake photos and videos nearly undetectable, which in turn is driving an urgent need for prevention technology to ensure media has not been tampered with from the point of capture.

Sometimes, the approach from incumbents is ignoring the issue, or hoping it goes away. That sort of indifference is not a good long-term strategy and like any startup company, we often find ourselves educating our customers on the threat and why there is a need to address it.

QHow are existing customer buying habits forcing change?

AI believe a lot of businesses have been embracing digital transformation, without the concern of new cyber threats in the form of altered digital media. In an insurance industry where the estimate of fraud hovers around 10% of claims, organisations may worsen the situation by adopting new technologies, without taking precautions against these new threats.

Due to digital transformation and increased competition, customers have growing expectations for businesses to provide them services faster, easier and more inexpensively. Attestiv, can provide these efficiencies, as well as ways to mitigate risk for the company.

QWhat’s unique about the culture at Attestiv?

AAs a team, we share a common enthusiasm about helping solve the problem of fake digital media and enabling our customers to embrace new technologies with confidence.

We promote an open and collaborative culture, encourage all employees to take part in decision-making and contribute their own expertise and experiences into our processes. We are very transparent, giving everyone the same view of the business that we present to our board. We are a small and growing team. We work hard, but have a great time doing it and very much enjoy working together.

Finally, we are all passionate about customer satisfaction and providing a great user experience across all of our products.

QWhere do you see Attestiv this time next year?

AWe anticipated in a year’s time, Attestiv will be the foundational platform for any organisation using photos and videos for business-critical purposes. The realisation is starting to emerge that there is a threat associated with AI-enhanced media and data, and more and more firms will be forced to take action.

Looking even further forward, we see ourselves becoming the standard for authenticity of digital data and media, particularly in the enterprise space.

QWhat advice would you give to anyone else looking to disrupt the industry?

AAlways listen to your prospects and customers to ensure you are meeting their needs and you are solving problems that rank high on their list. Stay committed to your customers, and let them influence your vision. In fact, use this to your advantage as incumbents often lose touch with their initial clients, creating the void in the market you are filling.

Finally, be open to learning new things along the way... even after years of experience, it’s amazing how much we continue to learn every day.

Nicos Vekiarides is the CEO and Co-Founder of Attestiv.