Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Bankers: AI to revolutionise customer interactions by 2020

29 Mar 2017, 4:47 pm

Banks will use artificial intelligence (AI) tools as the primary way with which to interact with customers by 2020. That is the view of a majority of industry insiders whose views have been collated by a consultancy firm.

According to a report by Accenture, 76% of bankers believe that "the majority of organisations in the banking industry will deploy AI interfaces as their primary point for interacting with customers" in the next three years. The responses also indicated that analysising data and gleaning insights, boosting productivity and lowering costs are the main reasons why banks will invest in AI user interfaces, it said.

Accenture said 579 people at banks in 31 countries across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and South America had responded to its survey, and that it had also gathered views from an external advisory board of "experienced individuals from the public and private sectors, academia, venture capital firms and entrepreneurial companies", as well as through interviews with "technology luminaries and industry experts".

According to the firm, 71% of respondents said they believe AI is "capable of becoming the face of their organisation or brand".

"AI is creating a new era of computing, rapidly moving from mobile-first to AI-first in the customer experience and moving staff to more judgment-based and higher value added role," the report said.

The adoption of AI will "accelerate technology adoption" within banks, 80% of respondents said. More than three quarter of bankers (78%) also believe AI will "ease use of and simplicity in the user interface to ensure a more humanlike experience", according to the report.

More than a third of respondents acknowledged that issues of privacy, data quality, and integration of AI systems with existing IT would need to be tackled for banks to reap benefits from the use of AI, the report said.

Accenture said that, as well as revolutionising customer interaction, the next stage of AI in banking would see machine learning "reengineer back-office processes". It also said that AI could alter the nature of work carried out by bank employees.

"Banks could pair artificial intelligence (AI) with people to fundamentally change not only the way bank employees work, but also the type of work they do – enhancing workforce efficiency, flexibility, compliance and skills that engage the customer," Accenture said.