Bankers will see three-quarters of workday transformed by AI

financialpost.com:

Artificial intelligence is likely to replace or at least lend a hand in tasks that take up almost three-quarters of the time bank employees now spend working.

That’s the conclusion of a new analysis by consultancy Accenture PLC, which said banking has the potential to benefit more from the technology than any other industry. Just 27 per cent of employees’ time currently has a low potential of being transformed, according to the analysis.

“There is a reinvention that is happening across banks, a way for firms to step back and re-evaluate ways of working,” Keri Smith, global banking data and AI lead at Accenture, said.

The release of ChatGPT more than a year ago prompted many firms to boost hiring for AI-related positions and test more uses for generative AI, which can summarize documents, write emails and churn out responses to users’ questions. The world’s biggest banks have been experimenting, spurred by the promise that the technology will boost staffers’ productivity and cut costs.

“Every bank needs to think through their talent strategy, and how to take this technology to scale,” Smith said.

At Citigroup Inc., all 40,000 coders will have the ability to experiment with different AI technologies by the end of March. Analysts at Bank of New York Mellon Corp. can wake up two hours later to write their research, because AI technology can create a rough draft and prepare related data for them overnight, chief executive Robin Vince said on an earnings call last month.

Banks can boost their productivity by as much as 30 per cent using generative AI over the next three years, according to Accenture.

Banking at its core is about deposits and lending money, which won’t change, Smith said. Instead, generative AI will either