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2022 was a boom year for AI. 2023 is almost certain to continue that trend. Many fear that these new technologies will take their job, but these new technologies are actually a big benefit to finance, banking, and pretty much every other industry. What can we expect in the years to come?
You’ve probably already heard of generative AI by now. Back in the summer of 2022, generative art models like Stable Diffusion and Dall-E 2 made a splash on social media. A lot of people were pretty entertained by the seemingly endless stream of weird, funny, and sometimes eerily realistic images being posted by everyone in the know.
The only ones who didn’t seem to be entertained were the digital artists. They seemed kind of worried.
Flash forward another 6 months, and we have Copilot generating functional computer code, and ChatGPT causing the two founders of Google to come back from retirement to not lose their search dominance to Microsoft’s latest investment. We have an endless stream of startups promising to have AI create your web copy, and even write blogs like this one here.
It’s clear that the dawn of AI is here. No one knows exactly what is coming, but clearly something is coming, and a large percentage of knowledge workers all seem to be fearing the same thing: “will this new technology take my job?”
To them I say don’t worry. Of course it will. And imagine how much work you’ll actually be able to get done once it does!
There’s a precedent
A rather similar technology – translation apps like Google Translator – has been around for 16 years now, and yet the translation industry is still alive and well. If you don’t use translation software on a regular basis, I think you’ll be pretty surprised just how good it’s gotten over the last 5–10 years. Yet there are now many more translators than ever before! This is because technological advancements drive growth, which leads to more people earning a good living – not less.
However, that doesn’t mean that the work of your average translator or localization expert hasn’t changed! Whether they admit to it or not, translation models like Translator or Deepl are very commonly part of their workflow now. Instead of recreating the exact same, word-for-word translation as thousands of translators before them, they can instead simply “debug” the text for any intelligent or inaccurate translations.
That means that instead of writing the same lines of text over and over, they can focus on adding their own personal touch in places where it matters to produce something better than a machine, but at a fraction of the amount of time spent. As the AI revolution continues, it will help workers be freed from monotonous tasks and enable them to focus on more creative and enjoyable work.
Changes in banking
I work with a lot of large banks, and we’re seeing AI integrated into many different areas of that industry. For example, sophisticated chat bots which can handle over 90% of customer service requests, leaving the customer service agents freed up to provide excellent care for the most unique or challenging 10% of the concerns.
On top of that, new advances in document automation allow banks to automate highly repetitive tasks such as processing loan documentation, customer onboarding, investment reporting, regulatory compliance, and more. Basically, instead of having representatives spend a large percentage of their working hours doing the same paperwork over and over, they are now free to solve more challenging, rewarding, or uncommon tasks in which their human creativity is needed.
Also, AI is changing how big banks carry out their consumer-contact marketing campaigns. Traditionally, putting together a list of clients to offer products to was a pretty manual activity. Lots or spreadsheets and estimated guesses, to put it simply. AI can now do most of this work for you, typically with much better results.
AI is here to help you
Many other modern business activities and domains will undergo this shift over the next decade or so. So yes, AI may take your job… your boring, monotonous job that always made you feel kind of like a robot to begin with. But once that happens, you’ll be able to take advantage of these miraculous new technologies to do more interesting work. Work that just so happens to deliver even more value for your company – it’s a win/win! You should be excited, not afraid.
We’ve had a long list of inventions that were supposed to put humans out of work. Yet, more people are working today than ever before. And while we still have a long way to go, more and more of society are working jobs that are much more comfortable than the work that their grandparents did. It’s normal to feel a little scared about change. But I can confidently say that good things are on their way.
If you still feel nervous, the best thing you can do is stay knowledgeable about these new tools. As they change the way we all work, those who are informed and adaptable will probably find themselves receiving a promotion!
This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author.
Sireesh Patnaik Chief Product and Technology Officer (CPTO) at Pennant Technologies
02 October
Jelle Van Schaick Head of Marketing at Intergiro
01 October
Ruchi Rathor Founder at Payomatix Technologies
30 September
Fiaz Sindhu Head of Community Banking at FIS
27 September
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