CITIGROUP said artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to displace more jobs across the banking industry than in any other sector as the technology is poised to upend consumer finance and make workers more productive.
About 54 per cent of jobs across banking have a high potential to be automated, the bank said on Wednesday (Jun 19) in a new report on AI. An additional 12 per cent of roles across the industry could be augmented with the technology, Citigroup found.
The world’s biggest banks have slowly begun experimenting more with AI over the last year, spurred by the promise that it will help them boost staffers’ productivity and cut costs.
At Citigroup, for instance, the firm has said it would equip its 40,000 coders with the ability to experiment with different AI technologies, and the company has said it’s used generative AI, which can produce sentences, essays or poetry based on a user’s simple questions or commands, to quickly comb through hundreds of pages of regulatory proposals.
JPMorgan Chase is scooping up talent and chief executive officer Jamie Dimon has said he believes the technology will allow employers to shrink the workweek to just 3.5 days. Deutsche Bank is using artificial intelligence to scan wealthy client portfolios. And ING Groep is screening for potential defaulters.
Generative AI “has the potential to revolutionise the banking industry and improve profitability”, David Griffiths, Citigroup’s chief technology officer, said. “At Citi, we are focused on implementing AI in a safe and responsible way to amplify the power of Citi and our people.”
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Even if AI does replace some roles across the industry, Citigroup said, the technology might not lead to a drop in headcount. Financial firms will likely need to hire a bevvy of AI managers and AI-focused compliance officers to help them ensure their use of the technology is in line with regulations.
Plus, new technologies have not always led to job cuts. In one example Citigroup offered, the number of human tellers soared between the 1970s and mid-2000s even after the introduction of automated teller machines. BLOOMBERG
