Case: Streamlining member services with AI at A&Til

A&Til

A&Til is an interdisciplinary unemployment insurance fund with approx. 150,000 members. A&Til cooperates with 60 trade unions, which provides in-depth knowledge of the members’ professions and industries. In addition to unemployment benefits and early retirement benefits, A&Til offers free job and career counseling and salary protection. A&Til has approx. 170 employees.

Challenge

The unemployment insurance fund A&Til develops and operates AI solutions for streamlining internal processes and services for the users. They need a flexible cloud solution with scalable access to High Performance Computing, and where their highly sensitive personal data is located in Denmark to ensure compliance with GDPR.

Solution

Lean-On offers A&Til a scalable private cloud, where A&Til is assured that sensitive data such as member pay slips, is located on Danish servers – and does not leave the European continent.

With the solution, A&Til can scale up their use of High Performance Computing when they train their AI models, while they can downscale when the models have entered into operation.

Value

The solution provides A&Til a secure-by-design private cloud container in Denmark so they can obtain a high degree of cyber resilience and avoid challenges with EU regulations and compliance in the handling and storage of data. This brings tremendous value. The company primarily works with sensitive personal data and is without exception subject to strict regulation. Hence, the partnership with Lean-On has become the foundation for the consistent development of AI-based services for the future.

Danish AI Frontrunner: Flexibility and Security are Crucial with Daily Disruptions

The ambition in A&Til is to be the digital guide dog among all the Danish unemployment insurance funds and to use technology for the benefit of members and employees. In fulfilling that ambition, the Danish cloud partner Lean-On plays an essential role.

Artificial intelligence can make a real and significant difference, for companies, their employees, and their customers. They can testify to this at A&Til, which is one of the Denmark’s largest unemployment insurance funds with 150,000 members.

The company is one of the first in Denmark to actively work with artificial intelligence and use it to sharpen internal processes and improve services. The effort has a clear purpose, as the ambition is to be the industry’s leading organization when it comes to digitalization, for the benefit of the members.

“We have a strong emphasis on digital solutions. Unemployment insurance funds are fundamentally very similar, but they are able to compete on price and service. AI can strengthen our organization in both disciplines. It can streamline workflows and at the same time offer tools that help members move on to the next job or navigate the unemployment benefit system,” says Peter Meleschko, CIO at A&Til.

Security and Flexibility Must be Top Notch

The ambition to be a digital frontrunner and the great focus on artificial intelligence place demands on the digital infrastructure. This applies, for example, to computing power to train AI models, and to where data is stored. In both areas, Lean-On is the perfect match as a cloud partner.

“Lean-On’s platform creates value for us for two particular reasons. First and foremost, we have very sensitive personal data, and it gives us a long-term sense of security that it is located on Danish servers. We will not have new strict EU regulation imposed on us, which could be a risk if we had used a cloud based in the US,” says Peter Meleschko and elaborates:

“Secondly, Lean-On provides access to high performance computing. The large computing power is absolutely crucial for developing and training AI models. It is important here that our solution is flexible, so we can scale up the capacity when we train, and scale down when we go live in production.”

Flexible solutions are particularly important for companies that work with artificial intelligence, according to Peter Meleschko. The technology is developing so rapidly that you have to deal with new advanced technoloties and opportunities on a monthly basis. Therefore, it is about building platforms where the language model is decoupled from functionalities and features.

In this way, the company can maintain functionalities and features while switching to a later and better language model. This development will only escalate, is Peter’s estimation.

“We have worked closely with Lean-On for many years. It is largely due to their flexibility and their desire to find new solutions. If we need a new generation of GPUs to operate our AI solutions, they are responsive and make an effort to deliver quickly. In that way, they are a really good primary operating partner,”

Peter Meleschko, CIO

A&Til

AI Benefits the Members

Specifically, A&Til has in-house developed AI models that help members with procedures they either find difficult or have very little experience with. This includes writing good job applications and will also include help navigating the unemployment benefit system which can be complicated at times. For the former, an AI model helps write the entire job application. This is of high importance as A&Til previously were only able to assist with approx. 1,500-2,000 applications on an annual basis. The AI solution now writes 300,000 applications a year.

“You are bombarded with questions when you become unemployed. And you are asked about things you have no idea of. It creates a great sense of insecurity, because correct completion of various forms is a prerequisite for receiving unemployment benefits. For this reason, we are in the process of training a digital solution that makes it easier for the unemployed to overcome formalities, so they have more resources to look for a new job. The ambition is to create a digital solution where users only have to enter one system. We take over some of the procedures and perform them on their behalf,” he says.

At the same time, they have developed tools that sharpen the internal processes. This includes, among other things, a language model that acts as a state-of-the-art postmaster. The model decodes the inquiry and ensures that it appears in the inbox of the relevant case worker. In this way, case workers can work more efficiently, and quickly provide the right advice to the members.

A Flexible Cloud Partner

A&Til see themselves as a digital pioneer in the industry. The solutions are developed in-house, and they have generally been among the first to use artificial intelligence in Denmark. Hence, they also make a lot of experiments when it comes down to needs, opportunities and solutions.

According to Peter Meleschko, there must be a willingness to fail, because they will. The constant focus on finding new ways to utilize technology also places demands on their partners. And Lean-On meets those demands.