The commercial adoption of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) has made many promises – and delivered on some. In document capture, it made improvements over manual work. However, it also quickly became clear that traditional OCR would not be enough to really solve the document problem: Too little flexibility, too tedious to configure, and too expensive.
It wasn’t until technology advances in recent years around artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, deep learning and natural language processing that a breakthrough in document capture was realized. OCR software combined with artificial intelligence creates Intelligent Document Processing that enables the best possible results for automating your company’s document-related processes.
Contents
- Why do we use AI with OCR?
- A- The problem with traditional OCR
- B- How OCR has changed with AI
- What does the AI OCR value chain look like?
- What makes the Parashift solution approach unique?
- A- Next Level AI: Document Swarm Learning
- B- Artificial and human intelligence combined
- For which industries is AI OCR suitable?
- How exceptional will AI OCR be in the future?
- Fully autonomous document extraction
- Parashift IDP for the present and future of your document extraction
1. Why do we use AI with OCR?
The combination of artificial intelligence with OCR is necessary for a system that wants to realize data extraction in enterprises. Firstly, because conventional Optical Character Recognition cannot solve the problems. And secondly, because with the combination of AI, the capabilities of OCR improve exponentially.
A- The problem with traditional OCR
Traditional, template-based OCR is suitable for rigid documents whose structures do not deviate from the template. However, traditional Optical Character Recognition is not made for documents with different layouts and variations. So when a document that needs to be processed changes, the template must be adapted and the machine reconfigured. This constellation is a reality as soon as you work with different suppliers in your company, for example. This makes traditional Optical Character Recognition expensive, cumbersome, inflexible and unsuitable for your company’s document processing.
B- How OCR has changed with AI
A solution to the problems of OCR systems is offered by relying on AI technologies. Based on advanced AI technologies, including machine learning (ML), deep learning, natural language processing (NLP), and computer vision, new opportunities have opened up for document processing.
With ML-based OCR solutions, and because of the way the algorithms work, there are significant advantages over traditional solutions. They differ in that they offer more flexibility and do not require templates, thus eliminating maintenance costs. In addition, the performance of ML-based Optical Character Recognition is continuously improving.
2. What does the AI OCR value chain look like?
Optical Character Recognition combined with Artificial Intelligence ( AI OCR), often referred to as Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), is responsible for the evolution of document capture.
The OCR software uses powerful AI technologies such as machine learning, deep learning, natural language processing and computer vision. In multiple steps from pre-processing to extraction to structured output, the value chain looks like this:
- Quality improvement of all incoming documents (also photos)
- Page separation (also batches)
- Automated classification for all document types
- Automated data extraction for all document types
- Validation
- Output as structured data to downstream processes and workflows
3. What makes the Parashift solution approach unique?
The Parashift IDP platform is superior. When compared directly to other solutions on the market, the Intelligent Document Processing solution brings 50% better results and 15x faster automations to your business. The following factors, among others, make the solution so powerful:
A- Next Level AI: Document Swarm Learning
At the heart of Parashift AI OCR is proprietary Document Swarm Learning technology. The unique approach of the technology and the Cloud OCR API enables global AI training across all customers and across billions of data points.
Parashift does not create a model per document type, but rather binds all learnings to the data point extractors. The idea is that many document types share data point extractors (for example, a date). Now, instead of repeating this for each document type individually, Parashift decouples it from the document type and lets a set of models learn only for this data point extractor.
The revolutionary Document Swarm Learning approach brings tremendous benefits to your organization:
- You benefit from a massive and unique data network.
- You benefit from continuous advances in Intelligent Document Processing and on your OCR accuracy.
- You benefit from cost and effort sharing across all users.
- You benefit from highest recognition rates even for completely unknown documents.
- You benefit from hundreds of ready-to-use document types.
- You benefit from easy drag & drop when creating individual use cases.
B- Artificial and human intelligence combined
In order to always provide you with the best possible results for your processes, Parashift also combines the advantages of artificial and human intelligence. The best online OCR powered by AI takes care of capturing and structuring the relevant and unstructured data from within the documents.
In case of uncertainty in the extracted data or data below the specified confidence threshold, the technology resorts to human-in-the-loop. Human eyes are used to validate the data. With this combination, you can be sure that you will always receive the correct data in structured form.
4. For which industries is AI OCR suitable?
Intelligent Document Processing solutions on the market often specialize in one industry. The revolutionary approach of Parashift AI OCR makes this unnecessary. The solution is not limited to a few individual use cases. This is of great advantage as soon as you want to expand the coverage of use cases in your company. With a horizontal, universal document processing solution, this is possible immediately. This prevents you from having to purchase additional solutions in the future.
Parashift IDP delivers great document processing results in the following industries and use cases, among others, but by no means limited to them:
Real Estate:
Real estate incoming mail comes with numerous real estate-specific document types and unstructured data, including real estate contracts, forms, and invoices. Instead of your employees having to manually capture the documents due to weak OCR systems, automate the inbox processing process with AI OCR. This leads to clear benefits for you:
- Accelerate processes company-wide
- Tap into new data sources
- Increase customer satisfaction
Insurance:
In claims processing, insurance companies have to process document types not only with high volume, but also with medium to low volume as quickly as possible. These include TARMED invoices and gym bills. Intelligent Document Processing brings you great benefits:
- Reduce the risk of errors
- Speed up your claims processing
- Improve customer satisfaction
Transport & Logistics:
For transport and logistics companies, speed and service quality are among the most important factors. Manual processes have so far put a stop to this. With AI-based document processing, on the other hand, you can automate the processing of transport orders and other goods accompanying documents (including handwritten ones). As a result, you speed up the entire transport process and respond more quickly to customer inquiries. This creates clear benefits:
- Free your employees from manual work
- Reduce costs and gain time
- Stand out from your competitors
5. How exceptional will AI OCR be in the future?
With the rapid progress of AI in recent years, the coming months and years are likely to be marked by further significant breakthroughs. Looking at AI-based OCR, the difference will be just as great. That’s also what Parashift is working on:
Fully autonomous document extraction
The Parashift team has been working on a daily basis on the goal of having one API to accept and process all documents and return data with no human involvement.
Imagine a world where document extraction is completely autonomous, super accurate, and pain-free.
6. Parashift IDP for the present and future of your document extraction
Today, we already deliver a powerful Intelligent Document Processing platform that can handle all business documents. As we move towards fully autonomous document extraction, we are continuously introducing iterations of the technology into the platform.
Don’t hesitate to tell us about your automation project. We’ll be happy to help.
