Borealis AI's 2023 Year in Review

Before our team heads off on holiday, we're reflecting on the year and sharing some exciting highlights. 

Borealis AI is a world-class AI R&D center founded by RBC in 2016. Recognized for scientific excellence, Borealis AI's team of more than 100 researchers and engineers develop and deploy cutting-edge Machine Learning solutions to solve challenging problems and transform the financial services industry.

The AI Landscape 

In November, RBC ranked #1 in Canada for AI maturity and in the top three globally in the Evident AI Index! This index is the global standard for AI leadership in financial services and assesses each bank on four pillars: Talent, Innovation, Leadership, and Transparency. RBC and Borealis AI continue to be recognized as global leaders in AI, and we are committed to advancing the field responsibly and ethically. It's exciting to be pushing the boundaries of AI for financial services, and we are grateful for the recognition. You can find more information about the ranking here.

Leading ML Resources 

Our research team packed the year full of content, from research blogs to in-depth tutorials and guides. In July, we published the first edition of our 'Introduction to Large Language Models' online guide. Explore the fundamentals and understand critical concepts for LLMs, such as instruction tuning, RHLF, prompt engineering, adapters, and more. You can read the guide here. 

As part of our goal to create real-world impact through scientific pursuit, we have published many resources like this for the AI community to learn from and enjoy. Here you can find blogs on various topics on our site, from recommended reading lists to newly published research on time series, predictive ML, reinforcement learning, and more. 

Impact at Scale 

In April, RBC and Borealis AI were thrilled to announce that the cutting-edge capability, NOMI Forecast, had been recognized for Best Use of AI for Customer Experience at the 2023 The Digital Banker CX Awards.

NOMI Forecast provides clients with a quick seven-day view into their future cash flow, showing upcoming preauthorized payments from any RBC deposit account. Since its launch in September 2021, more than 900,000 clients have used the feature. Over the past year, NOMI Forecast was enhanced to include bill payments, e-transfers, investment contributions, and salary payments.

At Borealis AI, we have the opportunity to work on some of the toughest financial services challenges delivering impact for over 17 million RBC clients worldwide. Our teams move quickly, challenge the status quo, and deliver AI-based products that shape the future of banking. You can explore some of our products here. 

The Future of AI in Finance 

Earlier this month, as part of Mediaplanet Canada's 'Future of AI' campaign, Borealis AI published an article, 'Generative AI: Balancing Potential and Responsibility,' in the National Post. The campaign included exclusive content from leading voices in the Canadian AI community, such as François-Philippe Champagne, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, CIFAR, SCALE AI | Canada's AI Global Innovation Cluster, and more. 

This piece discussed the importance of balancing innovation and responsibility while unlocking the potential of AI in financial services. You can read the article here to learn how Borealis AI and RBC are approaching Generative AI. 

Building Responsibly 

In 2023, responsible AI was a leading conversation in the AI community. AI permeates our daily lives and ensuring it is developed and used responsibly and ethically is a top priority. Responsible AI is critical to the future of AI technology, science, development, and adoption. For that reason, we launched our RESPECT AI platform in 2020 to contribute knowledge, algorithms, programs, and tooling to help advance the adoption of responsible AI and move society forward. This year, we added some exciting interviews with leading ML experts like Prof. Yoshua Bengio, Dr. Sasha Luccioni, PhD, and many more voices on responsible AI. Check out the hub here.

AI Community 

Thank you for being a member of our community! Borealis AI takes immense pride in the diverse events we've engaged in or hosted within the AI community. From the incredible atmosphere at our CVPR pub night and NeurIPS to the many community meetups hosted at our labs in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, we have thoroughly enjoyed meeting many passionate researchers, engineers, and business experts throughout 2023.  

Join Us! 

Borealis AI is a home for explorers and inventors. We provide a stimulating environment for the brightest AI talent to research and build cutting-edge solutions. Every day, our teams uncover new opportunities and aim to make discoveries that advance the field of Artificial Intelligence. Explore career opportunities here.  

We look forward to connecting with you in 2024!