Independent Banker - November 2023 - 49

Bharwani: Over the past year,
I've had the pleasure of engaging
with hundreds of financial services
executives on the transformative
potential of generative AI, while also
discussing risk mitigation and usecase
selection strategies. The question
that I get asked most frequently
is how to harness the power of
these models on their proprietary
institutional knowledge without
exposing sensitive data.
The reactive solution for many is
to block tools like ChatGPT within
their organization. However, this
does not address risks that arise from
personal device usage, effectively
reducing organizational visibility into
data exposure.
In my discussions with banking
executives, I focus on how they
can integrate AI into banking
workflows in a manner that's both
low risk and high impact. The aim
is to reduce data exposure risks
while enabling better control and
oversight of AI model usage within
their organizations.
Ultimately, how will AI allow
community banks to improve
their own processes and better
assist their customers?
Johnston: The promise of AI is
to empower business analysts and
leaders with enriched information
to make profitable decisions while
delivering a delightful customer
experience. Selecting a product
marketing strategy, predicting
revenue differentials from alternative
interest-rate offers, improving inbranch
or online customer experience,
and providing research and decisionmaking
tools to customers-all these
problems are best addressed via a
data-driven approach.
This applies to information
security, too, of course. The
sheer volume of security data can
overwhelm monitoring and incidentresponse
efforts unless enabled with
machine-learned anomaly detection.
An overarching principle for
building an AI suite is to be
customer-centric. This means first
determining what's important from
a customer advocacy standpoint
and then working backward to
prioritize the development of
AI capability.
Bilac: Rather than focusing on
the technology, I would encourage
bankers to focus on the specific
problems they are trying to solve
and think of using AI as a tool for,
initially, a narrow role and then
gradually expand as results and
ROI manifested.
In addition, it is important for
banks to understand what makes
them unique and worthy of their
clientele and pick AI applications
that will help them preserve the
essence of their brand while making
the customer experience better and
processes more efficient.
For example, banks that value
relationship banking as a core
value should probably not deploy
a chatbot experience with no ability
to ever access a human. Instead,
they should be congruent to their
brand and deliver a hybrid model
that allows them to couple the best
of AI chatbot speed and availability
with the empathy and relationship
aspect of their own bankers to tackle
complex and emotional tasks.
Miller: Banks, like all businesses,
are also going to dedicate resources
to this so they can increase their
knowledge of AI. Lack of expertise
is an issue, but that will change over
time. They need to invest in gaining
this knowledge for today and the
future. Most are taking a phased
approach to manage this both from
a personnel perspective as well as a
budgetary perspective.
Based on some data that I have
seen, less than a third of banks are
embracing this opportunity, with
most waiting to see how this unfolds.
Bharwani: With rapid
improvements in user experience,
the imperative is clear: Financial
services executives must strategically
incorporate this technology into
their daily workflows, and the impact
will be noticeable.
More from ICBA
In partnership with Senso,
ICBA's Demystifying AI
webinar series educates
community bankers on the
far-reaching implications
of generative AI in the
financial landscape. Find
more information at icba.
org/education
The most effective methodology
involves a " crawl, walk, run "
approach, starting with low-risk,
high-impact use cases that not
only invigorate internal teams
but also set the stage for more
advanced applications.
Imagine a future where
every customer interacts with
a specialized AI assistant for
seamless account management,
money transfers or mortgage
refinancing, all through a natural
language conversation.
Katie Kuehner-Hebert is a writer
in California.
independentbanker.org // 49
http://www.independentbanker.org
Independent Banker - November 2023

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