ICC launches Artificial Intelligence tool for Trade Negotiations

SAO PAULO, Oct. 2, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Chamber of Commerce will introduce a prototype of an AI-powered 'Cognitive Trade Advisor' designed to assist trade negotiators during the Public Forum at the WTO. The Cognitive Trade Advisor (CTA) is a pioneering AI-powered application designed to optimize and enhance trade negotiations. The CTA uses the understanding of natural language in order to provide cognitive solutions to improve the way delegates prepare for and carry out their negotiations.

The new tool results from the work of the Intelligent Tech & Trade Initiative (ITTI), a project led by ICC to increase the use of AI and blockchain in international trade.

Developed in partnership with IBM, the ITTI-CTA is a tech platform designed to read, scan, classify and interpret thousands of intricate provisions in trade agreements and related documents. It can do so in less than a second. By using IBM Watson®, the CTA will shorten the amount of time and improve the productivity and the quality of the preparatory work delegates devote to trade negotiations.

According to Daniel Feffer, Chairman of ICC Brasil and founder of ITTI, "the development of tools such as the CTA is a first step in reshaping trade negotiations as we know them, with AI boosting global cooperation".

The CTA emerged from the actual trade talks between Canada and Mercosur. It initially centers on the issue of Rules of Origin, the set of criteria used to ascertain the national source of a product. For the prototype, ITTI and IBM used previous trade agreements that Canada and Mercosur signed with different partners, totaling 700 hundred pages.

By applying a combination of AI, data analytics and cloud computing resources, the CTA comprehends and structures different families of Rules of Origin adopted in previous trade agreements, providing steadfast and smart insights for negotiators.

With the CTA, trade negotiators will also be able to better understand the strategies pursued by other trade partners. This will be made possible on the basis of automated analyses directed to sets of previous trade agreements signed by any given country. Users will also have the ability to identify the standards of rules employed for a certain industry in a particular trade agreement.

The CTA also encompasses a cognitive assistant named "Adam" — a smart trade expert who understands human language and can answer different questions about trade agreements, such as "what is the Rule of Origin applied for a certain product?". Adam will be the world's first cognitive assistant available for trade negotiations.

The Cognitive Trade Advisor will be formally launched at WTO Headquarters on October 2, 2018, at the WTO Atrium (Authors' Corner), in a session starting at 2:30 pm (CET).

Further information:
Gabriella Dorlhiac 
+55 11 3040 8836 

About ICC
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) is the largest world business organization, with a global network of over 6 million members in more than 100 countries. ICC aims to promote international trade and investment as vehicles for inclusive growth and prosperity.

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/icc-launches-artificial-intelligence-tool-for-trade-negotiations-300722232.html

SOURCE International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)