AI TOOL TO ASSESS CLIMATE RISKS FOR REAL ASSETS

Large insurance companies and asset managers have thousands of business clients, each with hundreds of assets. Assessing the potential financial risk of these assets is already a tough nut to crack, let alone determining the climate risks. How can insurance companies tackle that problem to operate in the best interest of our planet, while limiting their financial risks? Shayan Shokri developed Earthian AI, an AI engine that helps portfolio managers assess these risks in a climate-conscious way.

Insurance companies invest the money they earn in all kinds of assets, such as real estate, state obligations, or infrastructure. Assessing the risk of these investments is not an easy feat. “Finding the collective climate risks for these assets and operations is a very crucial, important, and hard job to do,” says Shayan. “You can think of investing in infrastructure or facilities that run the physical risk of floods or wildfires, but also liability to large problems in the environmental ecosystems, or where regulations like Net-Zero Industry Act or biodiversity practices come into play. There are many complexities and you need to process millions of data points to make a solid decision. We’re making the switch from our current economy to a sustainable economy. Many assets will lose their value and with the whole suite of products and tools of Earthian AI, we help to calculate those risks. Our AI engine can process up to 2 billion data points per day, which is more capacity than any of these large insurance companies have by a large margin.”

Sustainable AI

The idea for this tool grew over time, based on years of research and validation. It all stems from Shayan’s passion for using AI to drive a sustainable economy and save the earth. “In 2017, I finished my first research paper on AI which I later continued at Harvard University. It was about satellite measurements using AI. I figured it would be amazing to use those insights to tackle climate change.” Later, Shayan came to the Netherlands for a research position in neuroscience at Donders Institute for Neuroscience, linked to Radboud University. “I was looking for an opportunity to do something with my passion. I started my research career to eventually go into business to have a more direct impact on society. At one point, I was playing tennis on the courts of the University of Twente, and I saw a Novel-T ad about starting your business on the boarding. I figured it was worth a shot, so I took my first idea to Novel-T, where it was accepted.”

From greenhouses to financial firms

That idea was different from Earthian AI today. “We started with the idea to help greenhouses become more sustainable using AI. However, we quickly found out that we’d have much more impact if we focused on financial firms. These firms are essentially the only businesses that have access to all other sectors. Banks, insurance companies, and financing: they impact all other sectors, like a ripple effect. However, what they lack is all the data to properly assess the climate risks.” Shayan and his team put in the work to combine public and private datasets with satellite imaging. With that, they built their own AI algorithm. “We don’t use off-the-shelf AI tools, so we can ensure that our intelligence remains lean and efficient, so we can save energy and be superior at the same time.”

Fortune 500

After 14 months of being in operation as a company, Earthian AI onboarded their third customer. Interesting detail: all three customers are on the Fortune 500 list. “We’re very grateful for the trust they put in us. At the time we started, we didn’t have many resources. So having a place in Incubase and the entrepreneurial community to show us the way really helped. Knowing you’re part of such a community reduces the pressure to start, and it opens doors to events like Enschede Slush’D and international startup missions to Slush. In fact, we found our first customer through missions from RVO. It’s partially luck, but also a matter of fierce trial and error. If you work 100 hours a week, you get 2.5 times more chances to fail, learn, and iterate than someone working a 40-hour week. That’s how you outpace the competition. Putting in a lot of time is the secret, as well as having a very high-quality team. All my team members are exceptional.”

Better, not richer

They won ‘Best Dutch AI startup’ at VivaTech in Paris, and ‘Best AI in Financial Services’ in the UK. Now, Earthian AI already has offices in Paris and Munich. What’s next? “My vision for Earthian AI is to know what happens on Earth, where it happens exactly, and to what extent. If we have this highly detailed intelligence and companies have access to it, they can reduce their footprint - and they want to reduce it. Contrary to popular belief, these companies truly want to make a positive impact on society and the environment, they just don’t have the know-how. With Earthian AI, they do, and in an affordable way. I do this because I’m convinced we can make the world better, not to get rich. If that was my goal, I would’ve taken the offer from OpenAI for $400K a year. It’s the dream of making an impact on society that keeps you alive. You have to have conviction in your impactful dream and put in the time. Those two combined make it work."