Allianz Trade, the world’s leading trade credit insurer and
Inclusive Brains, a French start-up developing a new generation of
neural interfaces powered by generative Artificial Intelligence
(AI), have partnered to develop Prometheus, a new kind of
brain-machine interface that transforms diverse neurophysiological
data (brainwaves, heart activity, facial expressions,
eye-movements) into mental commands. The goal of this innovative
assistive technology is to help individuals who can no longer use
their hands or speak to operate workstations, connected objects and
to navigate digital environments without the need to type on a
keyboard, to touch a screen, or to use vocal commands. Eventually,
the Allianz Trade and Inclusive Brains partnership will accelerate
the development of AI-powered assistive solutions that give people
with disabilities more autonomy and facilitate their access to
education and to the workforce.
AI for good: When generative AI-powered solutions improve
inclusion
Inclusive Brains was founded in 2022 by Professor Olivier
Oullier, a neuroscientist turned AI entrepreneur, and Paul
Barbaste, a cyber security and AI expert, with an ambitious and
clear mission: to leverage the combination of generative AI and
Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) to improve the inclusion of people
who lost the ability to move because of life accidents or
neurodegenerative diseases. This is why Inclusive Brains began
developing the Prometheus BCI.
“Inclusive Brains’ generative AI models and multimodal neural
interfaces will benefit everybody, regardless of their physicality,
abilities, and needs, however special they might be. True inclusion
means developing solutions that assist each and everyone of us,
with no discrimination whatsoever. Being able to control a computer
with your mind, your eyes or by blinking or clenching will be life
changing for a lot of people with paralysis as it will enable them
to communicate with the world. So far, generative AI’s Large
Language Models (LLM) are great at understanding human language,
but words do not capture all the nuances of human-machine
interactions, even more when a disability prevents you from saying
them out loud or from typing them. We therefore train our AI models
with various kinds of neurophysiological data such as brainwaves,
facial muscles, eye-movements or heartbeats. It’s the only way to
truly empower machines and digital environments to adapt to how
unique each user is, and to how they feel in real time,” states
Olivier Oullier, Co-founder & CEO of Inclusive Brains.
Allianz Trade brings its global footprint to the Prometheus
BCI
The Prometheus technology is already well advanced. Indeed,
Inclusive Brains has developed a multimodal data acquisition
platform that can monitor, process and classify various
neuropsychological signals at the same time (brain, heart, face,
eyes). Coupled with the start-up’s AI model at the core of the
Prometheus BCI, it enables people to control an exoskeleton arm
with their mind, or by blinking, clenching or with some facial
expressions depending on one’s abilities and needs. Multiple
usability tests have been conducted with organizations supporting
people with cognitive disabilities and paralysis.
But in order to make the project live and real, Inclusive Brains
needed the support of a committed and powerful partner. This is
where Allianz Trade comes in: by partnering with Inclusive Brains,
Allianz Trade will bring some important resources to the project on
financial, strategic and visibility matters.
“We are proud to partner with Inclusive Brains to leverage
artificial intelligence and neurotechnology for positive social
impact. Inclusion is a core value at Allianz Trade. We believe in
the power of innovation to support it. Partnering with a start-up
that is at the forefront of developing generative AI and
neurotechnologies to achieve positive social impact is therefore a
natural continuation of this long-standing commitment. Concretely,
we will bring financial, strategic and logistics support to further
advance Prometheus BCI’s R&D and material needs by acquiring
physiological sensors and 2 exoskeleton arms. We will also support
Inclusive Brains in making the Prometheus AI model open source for
everyone else involved in advancing inclusion to benefit from our
partnership. The arm exoskeletons, once properly trained and
programmed, will be then given to a non-for-profit organisation
supporting people with paralysis. We also aim to give Inclusive
Brains and Prometheus a wider reach by supporting all
communications efforts at global scale. We believe we have an
important role to play to raise people’s awareness about the power
of AI to foster inclusion,” explains Aylin Somersan Coqui, CEO
of Allianz Trade.
A concrete application to come soon, during a key Olympic
milestone
In a few weeks from now, the Prometheus neurotechnology will be
used during the Olympic Torch Relay by a torch bearer with motor
disability to control the arm exoskeleton. Through this first
public application and use of Prometheus, Inclusive Brains and
Allianz Trade aim to increase people’s awareness on the urge to
support scientific and industrial effort in the field of AI-powered
assistive technologies that improve inclusivity in the workplace
and beyond.
“Allianz Group has been a historical partner of the
International Paralympic Committee since 2006. As Allianz Trade
this makes Prometheus even closer to our heart and fully aligned
with our values and our investment in science and innovation. This
is the first step of a long journey: other concrete use cases are
envisaged with Inclusive Brains such as the development of a
mind-controlled keyboard and the exploitation of their AI models to
improve safety in the workplace. We are convinced that generative
AI combined with cutting-edge neural interfaces will accelerate the
integration of people with disabilities and benefit all individuals
equally,” adds Aylin Somersan Coqui, CEO of Allianz
Trade.
“Following in the footsteps of the remote control who changed
the lives of people with disabilities before it got adopted
massively by the general population, our hardware agnostic gen
AI-powered neural interfaces will pave the way for a new generation
of smart tools and workstations that will assist everybody.
Mind-controlling connected objects is something people have been
doing for a while. Solutions enabling precise control with mental
commands that can be used daily and at scale is the big challenge.
This is why we needed to work with a global corporation sharing our
values and vision to turn our innovation into a viable and scalable
product. We are therefore delighted to be partnering with Allianz
Trade, since our goals are aligned: to leverage technology and AI
for the better good,” adds Paul Barbaste, Co-founder and CTO of
Inclusive Brains.
About Allianz Trade
Allianz Trade is the global leader in trade credit insurance and
a recognized specialist in the areas of surety, collections,
structured trade credit and political risk. Our proprietary
intelligence network analyses daily changes in +83 million
corporates solvency. We give companies the confidence to trade by
securing their payments. We compensate your company in the event of
a bad debt, but more importantly, we help you avoid bad debt in the
first place. Whenever we provide trade credit insurance or other
finance solutions, our priority is predictive protection. But, when
the unexpected arrives, our AA credit rating means we have the
resources, backed by Allianz to provide compensation to maintain
your business. Headquartered in Paris, Allianz Trade is present in
over 50 countries with 5,700 employees. In 2023, our consolidated
turnover was € 3.7 billion and insured global business transactions
represented € 1,131 billion in exposure. For more information,
please visit allianz-trade.com.
About Inclusive Brains
Inclusive Brains is developing next generation neural interfaces
powered by proprietary generative AI models. Its founders are on a
mission to create a Neural Foundation Model™️ with the objective to
turn any connected object with sensors into an assistive human
machine interface that can adapt to what makes each of us unique
regardless of our abilities, physicality, needs and goals. By
enabling people to control connected objects and digital
environments with their brainwaves, eyes, facial muscles, by
blinking or by clenching, the startup’s neurotechnology and AI is
truly inclusive. Thanks to Inclusive Brains’ detections of stress,
attention, cognitive load and fatigue, machines and digital
environments can also adapt in real time to how people feel, to
provide scientifically rigorous feedback on their mental health,
wellness, and to improve safety. Inclusive Brains founders were
named amongst the AI Inventors of the Year by a committee which
included Nobel Laureates, scientific and industry leaders. The
startup won the X-Tech Impact Award and the X-Grant High Impact
Award by the Foundation of the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique, and
two Handitech Trophy Awards, in the cutting-edge research and
digital inclusion categories.
Cautionary note regarding forward-looking statements
The statements contained herein may include prospects,
statements of future expectations and other forward-looking
statements that are based on management’s current views and
assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties.
Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from
those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such
deviations may arise due to, without limitation, (I) changes of the
general economic conditions and competitive situation, particularly
in the Allianz Group’s core business and core markets, (II)
performance of financial markets (particularly market volatility,
liquidity and credit events), (III) frequency and severity of
insured loss events, including from natural catastrophes, and the
development of loss expenses, (IV) mortality and morbidity levels
and trends, (V) persistency levels, (VI) particularly in the
banking business, the extent of credit defaults, (VII) interest
rate levels, (VIII) currency exchange rates including the
euro/US-dollar exchange rate, (IX) changes in laws and regulations,
including tax regulations, (X) the impact of acquisitions,
including related integration issues, and reorganization measures,
and (XI) general competitive factors, in each case on a local,
regional, national and/or global basis. Many of these factors may
be more likely to occur, or more pronounced, as a result of
terrorist activities and their consequences.
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Casey Pelfrey casey.pelfrey@allianz-trade.com Follow us
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