AI moving closer to the heart of Wall Street high finance.

AI and chatbots are moving closer to the heart of high finance.

Wealthy clients going to heavyweight  banker Morgan Stanley to discuss their investments may soon be talking to a chatbot as well as an advisor, Reuters reports. 

Rolling out AI.

The bank tested the chatbot for months with 1,000 financial advisers. 

Now the bank will roll out a generative artificial intelligence bot this month, developed with the makers of ChatGPT, OpenAI. 

Chatbot finds research quickly.

With clients’ permission, the bot will eventually create a meeting summary of the conversation; draft a follow-up email suggesting next steps, update the bank’s sales database, schedule a follow-up appointment, and learn how to help advisers manage clients’ taxes, retirement savings and inheritances.

Bankers, meanwhile, can use the chatbot to quickly find research, or forms. It saves  sifting through hundreds of thousands of documents.

Investment decisions still lie with people.

While the bot will give insights and administrative support to financial advisers, investment advice will remain the purview of humans.

“The adviser is still at the centre,” says a spokesperson for Morgan Stanley. 

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

Crunch numbers – detect fraud.

CEO James Gorman, has spearheaded a series of major deals that funnelled more money into the wealth business.He aims to reach $10 trillion in assets under management.

Morgan Stanley is not alone in its AI efforts. Banks already use AI to crunch numbers, detect fraud and analyze customer transactions, 

Wall Street giants are developing more sophisticated uses of generative AI that is capable of generating text, images and other data.

AI is spreading in the banks.

Large banks are the most advanced among financial firms in their adoption of AI, but asset managers, traders and insurers are also deploying it, says Michael Abbott, global banking lead at consulting firm Accenture.

“We’re beginning to see customer services led by artificial intelligence spread among the largest banks,” he says.