Financial Services and You

There are two major approaches to understanding how artificial intelligence is used in the world of financial services. The first is from the client’s perspective—how AI is helping interested parties navigate the complicated and overwhelming world of money. The second is from the banks’ and lenders’ perspectives—how AI is being used to interact with clients, make decisions, and create rules based on data.

These days, it’s likely that when you sign on to your bank’s website, you’ll be greeted by a chatbot, or virtual assistant. These programs use artificial intelligence to predict what issues or questions you might have; banks use them as 24/7 virtual financial advisors. They’re capable of personalized reports for you, offering suggestions, or making changes to your account.

AI has been recruited to substantially beef up cybersecurity, too. Banks now rely on AI to improve fraud detection. Each time you use a credit card or process a transaction, that data is analyzed by AI to determine whether the procedure was authentic. Ideally, using AI to protect your savings will lower human error—making your money even safer than it was before.

For banks and lenders, AI has done what AI does best: automated repetitive tasks, analyzed enormous amounts of data, and increased efficiency and productivity. However, as we have seen in other industries, the prevalence of unconscious bias in AI programming poses a real threat. AI is capable of the same unconscious biases that its programmers possess. The good news is that, given the right regulations and oversight, discrimination in financial services caused by AI could disappear altogether.