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» Briefing
2/14/17, 4:08 PM
ECHONET MAGAZINE
The bank for a changing world
N°2 - August 2016
Briefing
ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
The new frontier in
customer
relationships?
Technological innovation has
transformed the ways banks interact
with customers. From the first ATMs in
the 1970s to today’s mobile apps, new
technologies have boosted productivity
and improved service. They have also
raised misgivings and questions around
privacy, security, jobs and the place of
machines in the customer relationship.
What do the latest developments in
artificial intelligence (AI) mean for
banks, their customers and employees?
Industry expert Mikhail Naumov shares
his views.
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» Briefing
2/14/17, 4:08 PM
Mikhail Naumov
president and chief strategy officer of DigitalGenius
How would you define
artificial intelligence today?
There is a significant imbalance between today’s AI and its portrayal in the media. One can define artificial intelligence as training computer
programs to think, perform actions and in some cases reason without human intervention. The field is full of marketing buzz, so to get a clear
understanding of what’s possible today, it’s useful to look at the research underway at Google Deep Mind and the work of the Facebook AI Research
team.
“Augment the capacity of customer-service operations.”
How do you see artificial intelligence
being adopted in banking?
The first area that springs to mind is in customer service. Customers have become more comfortable with live-chatting or texting their service
needs—a perfect AI environment. After “training” algorithms with vast volumes of historical customer-service logs, a properly developed and
trained AI system will be able to significantly augment the capacity of customer-service operations. However, there are always going to be service
issues that a machine cannot solve. A practical AI solution will combine the best of human and machine intelligence into one seamless platform to
create a comfortable and resilient customer-service experience.
Older technology such as ATMs displaced tellers. Do we need to fear for our jobs?
Machine intelligence or AI is poised to impact jobs but in a meaningful way. Instead of performing routine tasks, banking specialists will have more
time to perform “human-level intelligence” work. It is no secret that a portion of work done today by tellers, customer advisers or credit analysts
is repetitive and better handled by an algorithm. Therefore, by letting the machine do what it does best, the human adviser will have more time to
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» Briefing
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cultivate more meaningful customer relationships. The role of advisers will evolve as more and more of their time is freed up by a machine. They
will have their own AI tools to help them do their job more accurately and efficiently.
“AI must be proven to work confidentially, reliably and securely.”
What might slow the deployment of
artificial intelligence in banks?
One thing that might theoretically slow down AI implementation is compliance. Banks have very serious regulators who are very strict on
enforcing rules. It’s critically important that any AI deployed in banking complies with regulations; these are in place to protect customers. Even
with all the hype going around in the AI space lately, banks are rightly conservative in adopting the technology. If AI is proven to work
confidentially, reliably and securely in, say, banks’ customer-service organisations, then banks will be willing to push a little deeper until they
finally reach the comfort zone needed to roll out more extensive solutions.
“Become the gold standard in financial services.”
In the bank of the future, how will artificial intelligence impact the customer experience?
Finances are a very private part of a person’s life, so speaking with your bank is largely a personal interaction. AI solutions can handle routine
questions, but customers will want to contact an adviser who is best placed to manage complex tasks. In the future, a customer adviser
empowered with the right AI tools will become the “gold standard” in financial services.
Mikhail Naumov is president and chief strategy officer of DigitalGenius, a company with offices in New York, San Francisco and London that brings
practical applications of artificial intelligence to the customer-service operations of global companies.
Find out what Google and Facebook are doing in the area of AI.
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