Google Cloud is the latest company to enter the Paycheck Protection Program frenzy as the tech heavyweight unveiled a trio of tools backed by artificial intelligence May 1.

“Much of today’s banking processes around loan-origination processing are still very much paper-driven and manual, subsequently slowing down approvals to people and businesses who may need the loans quickly, particularly during a pandemic,” said Christin Brown, the company’s global financial services strategy and solutions lead.

To that end, Google Cloud developed three products as part of its “PPP Lending AI Solution”: a web-based loan-processing portal that allows lenders to track application status; a document parser tool that turns unstructured data from loan documents into structured formats; and a forecasting analytics tool to assess risk within lenders’ portfolios. Brown did not disclose any specific financial institutions using the AI product, saying, “it’s early days, as we just launched the solution last week” and that there has been a lot of interest from lenders.

The document parser tool, called “Document AI PPP Parser API,” leverages optical character recognition (OCR) and machine learning to read documents and extract relevant information from an applicant’s supporting documents, and perform data capture analysis, a process that transforms information from various sources into a format that can be automated and analyzed.

So far, smaller banks have previously told Bank Innovation that they are opting for manual processes and staffing up employees to undertake the document verification and data extraction processes. But the use of AI and OCR could speed up processing time, Brown said.

“A computer can go through and pull out relevant information from loan application documents much faster than a person attempting to do the same processes manually,” Brown said. The document parser tool is available at no cost through June 30.

As many banks zero in on the origination side of PPP to process as many applications as possible before the funding depletes, a forecasting tool that analyzes portfolio risk will likely be useful once banks transition to servicing the loans.

The forecasting analytics tool, called “Loan Analytics,” helps lenders predict and analyze risk by uploading structured historical loan data and, with the addition of Google’s BigQuery tool, can integrate new events and data sources from loans into banks’ real-time models. The real-time data stream enables lenders to “understand their risks and trade-offs in minutes versus hours,” Brown added.

Google has been ramping up product development for the financial services space with an eye toward continuity planning. Since acquiring IT provider Cornerstone Technology in February, Google has helped financial institutions, including KeyBank, Turkey-based DenizBank and Brazil-based Boa Vista, modernize infrastructure and migrate mainframe architecture to cloud-based systems.