By Biju Balakrishnan, CTO, FIA Global
“…you just can’t differentiate between a robot and the very best of humans,” said Isaac Asimov, the American sci-fi author who has written books such as I, Robot and The End of Eternity among several others, books that seem so prescient.
As we step into another era of Artificial Intelligence (AI), called generative Ai, a prime example of which is ChatGPT, having over 100 million users and receiving over 1.8 billion visitors per month, Isaac Asimov’s words seem to be uncannily true.
Generative Ai is a kind of Artificial Intelligence that can produce text, imagery, audio and synthetic data, and is improving in leaps and bounds even as you read this. Imagine this: just say, “Write a letter to the employees giving company highlights,” and in a matter of mere seconds, you will have a full-fledged letter will be presented to you. All you have to do is provide prompts of the numbers that you want to highlight. a 500–700-word blog post could appear in the text box, which you can regenerate ‘n’ number of times, making incremental changes as you like it.
In fact, a large number of organizations have already begun adopting generative Ai to product text, marketing content and even help with customer service interactions. The buzz around generative Ai therefore, is real, and cannot be dismissed. What I am interested in understanding is, how effective will it prove in the fintech space and how we are going to be able to leverage its obvious advantages to serve our customers better.
Going as far as the imagination will let you Tech experts seem to be think that currently, there already exist a number of use cases where generative Ai could be used. For example, improving the customer experience through “real” conversations on a chatbot, or improving online educational content in English and other languages, dubbing in movies and news, writing music, or scripts for ad films, perhaps even designing blueprints for architects.
In the finance arena, it is believed that generative Ai could shield customers from fraud, by building better fraud detection systems based on an individual’s transaction history (which is already being used by AI-powered core banking systems today). But if one were to leap into the near-future, it seems that generative Ai could help banks, financial institutions and organizations like FIA, in loan application, loan servicing, loan underwriting, debt collection, credit analysis and more.
Yes, there may come a time, in the not-too-distant future when generative Ai could write code, could suggest drug formulas in pharma research labs, and even develop new products. It does seem that human beings could become redundant in several fields, across multiple businesses.
Should generative Ai be dismissed or…? As a CTO of a social impact fintech company, our mission is to make financial inclusion simple for the large swathes of underserved communities and segments of society who are yet to reap the benefits of financial inclusion. I know for a fact that it would not be a good idea to simply dismiss generative Ai without reflecting and discussing its possible advantages and how, if incorporated into our solution platforms it could prove to be transformative.
Every new breakthrough technology is embedded with inherent risks. In the case of this human-like Ai, especially in banking services, where inaccurate analysis or information could have disastrous consequences for the service provider and end-customer, we must tread carefully, and be cognizant of its ebb and tides.
As in all such cases, we must weigh the pros and cons carefully, assess if our teams are equipped with the right technical expertise to deliver on this future-forward technology.
In a country where digital laws are evolving, and with a heterogeneous population, we must be cautious of different facets of generative Ai; security, data privacy, source of data and data quality, accuracy, environmental impact and of course accountability to the end-user.
A lot of us may feel the need to tread cautiously as far as G-Ai in fintech is concerned, as it does imply significant initial investments in hardware, specialized talent, and data collection, which many may think is unjustifiable, given the target market segment. However, I believe that these costs will garner a higher RoI over a period of time. For fintech solutions providers, there’s no getting away from the iterative nature of launching something new – testing, testing, testing – and fine tuning it to deliver incremental improvements over time. G-AI fintech solutions could easily get more cost-effective and accurate, as it learns to assess, analyze and deliver relevant and customized solutions. Companies will be able to confidently offer more G-AI enabled-services to their customers, thereby increasing the velocity of financial inclusion.
Future. Forward? Is there a case for augmenting existing technology that could bring millions out of poverty through better financial inclusion programmes including essential banking services? Absolutely. But with any form of exciting, evolving and disruptive technology, we must always keep our end-customer in mind.
Accenture research found that “90% of all working hours in the banking industry can be impacted by large language models (LLMs)….and 54% of the industry’s work time has a higher potential for automation by AI.” They also forecast that, “by 2028, the industry will see 30% employee productivity gains across the front office through to back-office operations.”
This is definitely great news, but does it mean that Mahesh Kumar in a distant village in Kutch or Sharmila Gogoi in a rural and sparsely populated village in Assam can access credit for the small businesses they want to start? Will generative Ai make the lives of our Bank Mitras and Bank Sakhis easier, by giving them accurate analysis of data for promotion of the right and relevant product to their customers? Most of this is already at play with fintech platforms like FINVESTA, but the moot question then is: what new applications of generative Ai can we start imagining and bringing to fruition, through our tech-enabled platforms, that will make financial inclusion and financial wellbeing a reality for the millions who are still living on the edge of financial exclusion?
