Skip to Main Content

Financial Services

What banks need to know about the real AI revolution

Artificial intelligence (AI) can be a frustratingly ambiguous phrase in casual conversations because of its wide-ranging connotations. It’s often envisioned as a helpful assistant like Rosie the Robot from “The Jetsons” at best or an existential threat like HAL 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey” at worst – both predictions just beyond the horizon.  

Author

Michael Walsh

But right now, no super computer like Watson from “Jeopardy” is dominating the stock market. Your 401k isn’t doing any better because of robotic advisors. Instead, AI is performing menial tasks that tend to go unnoticed by the general public but have made modern life more convenient.

Although AI and machine learning (ML) will continue to evolve, this field has already utterly transformed our lives. The anticipation of sentient robots has distracted the public from the quiet revolution that’s already happened right before their eyes. It was behind the scenes. And it will endure.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in financial services.

Below the surface

Zachary Scott, associate managing director at Publicis Sapient, said AI will continue to improve the manual and repetitive processes that underpin much of financial services: identifying and targeting new customers, servicing existing customers, handling risks and controls, managing operations and reporting along the way.

“We believe almost all FS services will be automated in the future, especially
with the increasing rise of digital only transactions. Behind this automation will
be a wide range of AI/ML use cases which are already beginning to emerge,”
Scott said.