Generative AI In Banking: A Friendly Horse & Not A Rogue Bully

Okay. AI will not take over the world. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows. But can it take over a bank? Hmmmmmmm, now there’s something that we can assess. Within a previous article, we explored how banks will evolve themselves into FTIs or Financial Technology Institutions via the implementations of artificial intelligence. Okay, noted. But let us now explain how and why this AI can be implemented and to what degree the implementation will be accepted.

But first, let’s clear the air. Everytime a new piece of technological infrastructure comes about, there is always the excessive buzz about this technology replacing humans and leaving them redundant. You would think that this would all be ignored, given that humans build AI to serve humans but in some cases, there may be collections of humans who think that we will eventually serve AI. Maybe it’s just a by-product of Hollywood movies. Fair enough.

Maybe they’re all just a little pessimistic. I do not see any evidence of evil AI ruining the world and taking dominion for itself in a rage against mankind — especially within this context being controlled environments that have tiers of regulation and mitigation — banking and financial services. No, AI will not become the overlord of these industries. No, AI will not go rogue and steal all of the credit card info and buy a billion dollars worth of goods on Amazon and ship it to Antartica. Banking regulators and policy makers have engineered enough counteracts to dismiss this from ever happening. Right?

Maybe I am wrong. Maybe the AI is too smart for us and will not do as it is prompted. One day it may indeed crash the financial system. But, as us human have done from the dawn of our sentience, innovate we must. That is the human way. And with that being said, AI will be implemented for innovations’ sake. Now, with all of the scaremongering and excessive hype aside, what can AI do for us to better serve banks so that these banks can better serve us all? Let’s explore:

This past summer, we had some meetings with a cool banking prospect. These guys are of a decent size, but they are honest about where they are within the market. They are not number one and probably will never be number one. They have accepted that as their reality. However, what they have not accepted is mediocrity and internal lassitude. No. Their current goals are to innovate themselves beyond their current level of sustainability and “technological conformity” — if you will. Technological conformity? Yes. Now, let me explain what technological conformity is. This term describes institutions who ascribe to trends and softwares that they do not necessarily want, need nor use but become subject to adopting them because of the industry’s pressure for them to do so.

Now, this is not necessarily wrong, given that it is always better to follow along as opposed to getting left behind. Adopting various softwares to have and use for various purposes is also good for the tech market. But, this behaviour can also create a cookie-cutter culture within your institution. The cool banking prospect become aware of this and grew out of it by shedding aware various “big-box” softwares that it had no use for. Now, their goals are for themselves and the clients that they serve — not to match what their competition is doing nor what the industry is portraying as trendy.

In a strategic and ingenious sense, they are totally ignoring their competition and the industry at large. Why? Because they have figured out that they are not in the business of serving their competitors nor the industry. No. They are in the business of creating a financial institution that is tailored for efficiency and people centrism which will subsequently give their clients the best banking experience possible.

During the meet, the bank’s spearhead behind this vision stated that their chief objective is to leverage the power of AI for their financial institution so that the technology is prompted so accurately for their operation and its clients that an emotionally sustainable connection will come about from these efforts. When he said that, it made total sense immediately. Who needs to compete when you have internally created such a strong product that your clients become emotionally apart of your ecosystem — fostering extended social proof and referrals without intent. Who needs to compete when you have something that your competitors don’t? That is their goal.

And that folks is what AI will do for banking. Screw that, that is what AI is doing for banking in both beta, pilot and some production stages. No, AI will not corrupt the financial system and cause a crash. Honestly, there are other rogue virus softwares that do that already. And by the way, global banks have overcame those since the 1990s to the present days.

No, AI will not be a perfect hero free from mistake and blemish. We should embrace AI in banking as an extension of human-power- whereas it is a new tool that allows us to become better at our jobs collectively and individually as opposed to AI becoming a bully that will steal folks’ roles and leave tons of ex-bankers miserable at the unemployment office.

AI is our friend, a loyal horse in software form. We’re gonna train it accordingly. We’re gonna nurture it and feed it nice and healthy data so that it may perform at an optimal level. When it does its job accurately — which it will of course, we will feed it more healthy data. We will show it off to our peers so that they can see how lovely it is because everybody likes a pretty top performing horse don’t they? Yes, everybody does indeed. We will not be frightened by it because it is our friend and friends don’t frighten one another.

The more we nurture and train it, the better it’ll perform. And this performance’s value from a tangible and emotional level is what will give individual financial institutions the edge beyond the realm of technological conformity. And that edge, is what will set the AI adopting banks far apart from all of the others.