Luminance announces that it has started working with Arcadis, a leading asset manager, marking the first deployment of Luminance’s artificial intelligence technology in a company beyond the legal sector. Having already installed its technology within a number of leading law firms, this latest contract win reflects Luminance’s increasing ambition to target in-house legal counsels across many different industries. Arcadis will use Luminance's AI technology to improve its legal document review and management processes for private equity and sovereign wealth fund clients.

This will involve using Luminance’s advanced machine learning algorithms to find errors and potential vulnerabilities in a vast array of legally-binding paperwork for real estate portfolio transactions. Luminance’s advanced anomaly detection pinpoints where sections, paragraphs or words have been changed or omitted between different surveyors’ reports. The system will help Arcadis accelerate its internal legal processes, freeing up the firm’s legal team to add greater value to their clients in other ways.

“We welcome our first major client from outside the legal industry,” said Emily Foges, CEO of Luminance. “Arcadis’ successful deployment of Luminance demonstrates the wider applications of our platform beyond due diligence. It really is a fundamental technology that is already changing how professionals work.”

Luminance, developed from Ph.D. research at Cambridge University, harnesses proprietary machine learning algorithms to read and understand documents as a human does, at speeds no human can match. It detects patterns within language, allowing it to sort, cluster and classify documents while exposing anomalies – subtle differences between similar documents that indicate where review should be focused. Built-in collaboration tools also add value to Arcadis’ work by streamlining the entire review process.

“We have decided to deploy artificial intelligence as we have a high number of international projects planned for the upcoming months. Over the course of our pilot with Luminance we have seen the great benefits its technology will bring to our work by making our review processes even more efficient.” said Matthew Cutts, Global Financial Institutions Sector Leader at Arcadis.

Luminance launched in September 2016 and is currently live in 12 countries, having completed over 110 client transactions globally.

About Arcadis

Arcadis is the leading global design & consultancy firm for natural and built assets. Applying its deep market sector insights and collective design, consultancy, engineering, project and management services, Arcadis works in partnership with clients to deliver exceptional and sustainable outcomes throughout the lifecycle of their natural and built assets. With 27,000 people active in over 70 countries that generate €3.3 billion in revenues, Arcadis supports UN-Habitat with knowledge and expertise to improve quality of life in rapidly growing cities around the world.