Morgan Stanley launches AI chatbot to attract rich people

NEW YORK, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Wealthy clients who visit Morgan Stanley financial advisors to discuss their investments may have a different experience in the future: have a chatbot listen to them. listen to their conversation.

After testing it with 1,000 financial advisors for several months, the bank is launching a general artificial intelligence bot this month, developed with ChatGPT makers OpenAI.

Bankers can use virtual assistants to quickly find research or forms instead of having to sift through hundreds of thousands of documents.

The bank is also developing technology that will eventually, with the customer’s permission, be able to create a summary of a meeting conversation, draft a follow-up email recommending next steps, update a database bank sales data, schedule your next appointment, and learn how to help advisors manage their clients’ finances in areas like taxes, retirement savings, and inheritance. Details about the program have not yet been reported.

“The impact (of AI) will be significant,” said Sal Cucchiara, chief information officer for wealth and investment management at Morgan Stanley, one of the executives driving the bank’s AI efforts. tell”, can be compared to the birth of the Internet.

Cucchiara, tasked with continuously scanning Silicon Valley for potential technology suppliers, met with OpenAI executives in 2022, before the rapidly growing app ChatGPT became widely used. cobble.

“It is clear that we need to cooperate with them, they are far ahead of other competitors,” he said.

Andy Saperstein, co-chairman and head of wealth management at Morgan Stanley, then flew to California to discuss the partnership with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Boris Power, an employee company engineering.

They signed a deal last summer that gave Morgan Stanley priority access to product development for wealth management. Executives from the two companies hosted a dinner hosted by Saperstein, a candidate to become the bank’s next CEO.

OpenAI declined to comment.

While bots will provide insights and administrative support to financial advisors, investment advice will remain a human vision.

“Advisors are still front and center,” Cucchiara said. For now, he said, employees see the technology as a useful tool and aren’t worried that they will be replaced by bots.

RACE TO THE RICH

The AI ​​initiative is part of Morgan Stanley’s strategy to boost its asset division, where net revenue grew 16% to a record in the second quarter and new client assets increased by $90 billion.

Chief Executive James Gorman, who has led a series of big deals aimed at drawing more money into the asset business, aims to reach $10 trillion in assets under management.

Morgan Stanley is not alone in its AI efforts. While banks already use AI to crunch numbers, detect fraud and analyze customer transactions, Wall Street giants are developing more complex applications of synthetic AI capable of create text, images, and other data.

JPMorgan Chase (JPM.N) appointed Teresa Heitsenrether as chief data and analytics officer in June to lead AI adoption at the largest US bank. Rival Bank of America’s (BAC.N) virtual assistant, Erica, has had more than one billion customer interactions since its introduction in 2018.

Elsewhere, Moody’s Analytics is also working with OpenAI and Microsoft to develop a research assistant that customers can use, said Nick Reed, the company’s chief product officer.

Michael Abbott, global banking leader at consulting firm Accenture, said big banks are the most advanced financial companies in adopting AI, but asset managers, traders and Insurance companies are also implementing it.

“We are starting to see AI-led customer services spread across major banks,” said Abbott, who is conducting hundreds of case studies with lenders looking to use AI. best”.

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