How Does Alpha Actually Work? A Walkthrough for First-Time Users

Between receiving a document and having usable information in a business system, there is a great deal of manual work. Alpha is designed to reduce it. This walkthrough follows a document from the moment it arrives to the moment reviewed data reaches its destination.

The problem Alpha addresses

An insurance or reinsurance team may receive a long contract, a claim notification or an accounting statement. Someone has to find the relevant facts, interpret them, match them to the correct fields and enter them into another system.

Alpha takes on much of that preparation. It reads and interprets documents, extracts the relevant information, transforms it into the required format, including standardised Excel outputs, and supports review before the data moves further.

The practical benefit goes beyond less repetitive reading and rekeying. Alpha also acts as a subject matter expert: it applies domain knowledge and business rules to interpret information correctly, including distinctions that someone without specialist knowledge may miss. People spend their time checking meaning and resolving exceptions.

How the parts of Alpha fit together

Alpha is one product, built from connected components that each play a different role. Alpha Intelligence reads and interprets documents, extracts and structures information, transforms it into the required format and presents it for review and further processing. Alpha Tasks organises incoming work, including ownership, statuses and actions, performs document triage and extracts preliminary metadata for display in the Workbench. Alpha also exchanges data with other systems and intake sources, including SICS, ImageRight and shared mailboxes.

Together, these components connect document analysis to the operational work that follows it.

Five steps from document to usable data

1. Receive the input. A user uploads a document, or it arrives through a configured integration or intake source, such as a shared mailbox. The available intake route depends on the application.
2. Read the content. Alpha reads and interprets content from documents, including scanned pages, handwritten text and images containing text.
3. Interpret, organise and transform the information. Alpha applies configured instructions, business rules, reference data and domain knowledge to populate the fields needed for that process, and can present the result in the required format, including standardised Excel outputs.
4. Review the result. A person checks the information, consults the source document and corrects or completes values where necessary.
5. Use the reviewed data. The information goes to the configured output or business system, such as SICS.

Why finding a number is the easy part

Finding a number is often easier than establishing what that number means. A contract may contain limits for different layers or sections, and those values cannot automatically be added together and presented as one contract total. A premium also needs to retain its meaning: a minimum premium, a flat premium and a total gross premium are different things.

Alpha’s contract application uses the contract type and structure to determine which information is relevant and how it is presented. This is where insurance knowledge, reference data and business rules matter, and it says more about how Alpha works than the claim that artificial intelligence “understands documents”.

“Finding a number is often easier than establishing what that number means.”

Yulia TrafimchikHead of Products, Jean Edwards Consulting

What to look for in a demo

A useful demo follows a recognisable business task through the relevant steps. You should be able to see what work Alpha removes and what your team will still review.

To see this on a task from your own business, book a demo.