TIANJIN, China,

Sept. 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- LexinFintech Holdings Ltd. ("Lexin") (NASDAQ :LX ), a leading online consumer finance platform for educated young adults in

China

, attended the World Economic Forum (WEF) in

Tianjin, China

, also known as Summer Davos, where the company's CEO spoke about what artificial intelligence (AI) has brought to business and society. Lexin's CEO

Jay Wenjie Xiao

was invited to share his insights on AI as a representative from the fintech sector at a panel discussion under the theme of "A Global Conversation on Artificial Intelligence" on

Sept. 18

with other panelists from business, venture capital, and academia. The financial and advertising industries are two sectors where AI has unlocked the most business potential with widespread adoption

,

Xiao said when asked about what AI means to business. "AI has largely contributed to a revolution in increasing efficiency in the financial industry by lowering the costs of lending, and therefore

makes

lending more accessible to consumers who were previously underserved," he said.

AI is used in the whole value chain of Lexin's business, including customer acquisition, risk management, fund matching, after-debt management, and customer service.

Lexin's risk management engine, based on over 1,000 decisioning rules and more than 7,500 data variables, allows it to handle 98% of loan applications automatically within seconds.

"While humans will need to work on a cluster with thousands of cases in order to identify risks, AI is able to detect the possibility of risks based on a much smaller cluster, making risk management highly efficient," Xiao elaborated.

Xiao also commented on AI's impact on society. While AI has replaced some repetitive work of humans, raising concerns about mass technological unemployment, Xiao said this is just one side of the story.

"As AI is used more widely and deeply, new jobs will be created, just like what we have experienced before – new jobs coming out because of the rise of the internet," he said.

He added that there will be increasing demand for AI-related jobs, such as data analysts, in the future.

A replay of the panel discussion is available at the following link: https://www.weforum.org/events/annual-meeting-of-the-new-champions/sessions/a-global-conversation-on-artificial-intelligence. Founded in 1971 by Professor Klaus Schwab, the WEF engages the foremost political, business and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Being held from

Sept 18

th to 20th, the Summer Davos has attracted more than 2,000 participants from 111 countries.