Many bank employees are likely to see their daily roles replaced or augmented with AI.
A new analysis published by Accenture noted that the banking industry has the potential to benefit the most from AI. The consultancy firm said banks could see as much as a 30% boost in productivity by using generative AI over the next three years.
The Rise of the Robo-Banker
However, the projected boost in productivity comes with AI automating routine tasks, which may affect the roles of bank tellers and other employees.
Per the report, only 27% of employees’ time currently has a low potential of being transformed by technology. This means that banks can deploy AI to replace or help with tasks that the employees spend most of their time working on.
For bank tellers, Accenture said up to 60% of their routine tasks, which primarily involve collecting and processing data, could be supported by generative AI. Other employees, like loan officers, may need to adapt or gain new skills and be moved to a different role, the firm said.
“There is a reinvention that is happening across banks, a way for firms to step back and re-evaluate ways of working,” said Keri Smith, global banking data and AI lead at Accenture.“Every bank needs to think through their talent strategy and how to take this technology to scale.”
Citigroup, ING Lead the Charge
Some of the major banks are already starting to experiment with generative AI in their operation, including Citigroup Inc., which plans to allow 40,000 of its coders to experiment with the technology by the end of March.
During the Money 20/20 fintech conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands, last year, some banks claimed to be piloting the use of AI in their work processes, including Dutch multinational banking ING Bank, which said they are exploring the use in areas like code refactoring and comms calls.
“We are experimenting at this stage and we don’t have necessarily anything client facing but we are using the [tech the] same as other companies, for example, code refactoring, comms calls, the other way around,” said Mariana Gomez de la Villa, an executive at ING Bank.
