The corporate world was better prepared in the wake of the tectonic shifts that we are passing through. All that was required was a change in the mind set; this without the option.  The digital mantra kept the office lights burning.  A solitary office where the employees congregated each morning mushroomed into 60 separate SOHOs.  Thanks to internet, remote working is the norm.  Thanks once again to meeting softwares and collaborative tools remote working  has come to stay.  One does not have to gaze into a crystal ball to predict corporates will downsize sprawling  expensive workplaces.  

Business is all about decision making.  In the previous life, one walked upto senior management for a quick chat and returned with a decision.  Life has since changed.  One does not really have to wait for a person to make a decision.  Artificial Intelligence (AI), the collective wisdom of the keenest of minds supported by statistics has supplanted the senior management and is the guru for making decisions.  A solid argument in favour of remote working model.  

The next wave will be eXplainable Artificial Intelligence - XAI in short. An embedded expert decision making tool that is fast, transparent which considers the pros and cons of several relevant and complex business, industry, economy, risk etc. scenarios. Let us look into some use cases in the financial industry.

To Allow or Not to Allow  

A corporate that enjoys several facilities from a bank requests a drawdown.   The XAI guru takes over when the request comes in and makes an objective decision. A fact sheet with rationale (listing the pros and cons) is generated and the process complete. The decision is communicated to the corporate in a seamless digital channel. 

To Recommend or Not to Recommend

A wealth manager can validate her judgement on a portfolio of  investible securities which she can recommend  to her clients. The XAI will help her here in optimising her list of recommendations that factors the risk appetite and the potential return.  The fact sheet with rationale can be shared with the client.  This will help in building better relationship with no gray areas. 

To Market or Not to Market

It is quite annoying when one receives unsolicited offers from well meaning banks.  I call this as forced attrition. A situation when a retail customer leaves a bank that is insensitive.  Leave it to XAI to match the customer to product  to have a higher probability of eliciting a positive response. 

Digital has been the saving grace in minimising the social impact of the current environment. It has to be given its due. Luddites I am sure will agree with me as well. The depth of digital tools faced a reality check and a comprehensive test for sustainability. In my view,  has come out with flying colours and delineated the importance of tools such as XAI that will be the mainstay in the neo business model.  We are now a new generation.