Ping An Group – which means peace and safety – is a Chinese financial services conglomerate founded in 1988. From humble beginnings in Shenzhen as the first joint-stock insurance company in China, the company has diversified into asset management, finance and banking, and technology.
The company is known for integrating technology into its services, using big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain to enhance customer experience and operational efficiency.
Today, it has 232 million customers and 500,000 staff and agents, meaning one in 2,000 Chinese citizens works for Ping An.
On June 13, 2024, Forbes published its ‘Global 2000’ ranking and ranked Ping An 29th among global enterprises, with assets totalling RMB11.58 trillion.
So, how did this company go from an insurer, selling life, property, and casualty insurance, to a tech giant with its 11 technology affiliates operating beyond insurance and finance?
In simple terms – artificial intelligence.
Dr Xiao Jing, Ping An’s chief scientist, however, said: “AI is used to help humans in their work, not replace them, as the human touch is equally important.”
Xiao was in Malaysia earlier this month and shared how the company pivoted into several other businesses after getting its start in insurance.
“It is all thanks to big data and the emergence of artificial intelligence,” said Xiao, the keynote speaker at the ‘AI in Finance – Current Applications and Future Trends’ event on Sept 12.
“With AI, we could digitalise the traditional way we did business, helping us cut costs and reduce the time it took to serve a customer.
“We did that by integrating data, computation power, and algorithms with professional knowledge and experience, and added practical scenarios to get a trustworthy AI.”
The company also invested in training and hiring the best people, and employs 30,000 IT engineers.
“We invested in technology resources by hiring the best people to build the solutions. As I said earlier, humans are important to us,” he said.
“Getting the right people was the priority as we needed to improve efficiency when doing business, whether in insurance, finance, or technology.
“We wanted a way to improve data because when it is already in the system, a person can skip many of the processes when filling out insurance forms or when applying for a loan.”
Meanwhile, David Lim, CEO of Wise AI and National Blockchain and AI Committee, said Malaysia could learn from Ping An’s approach to AI.
“The key thing is AI is a tool. It is not the business. Its purpose is to optimise the value of a sound business and help it grow,” said Lim.
