At the onset of this year (January 8, 2024), Barclays posted an article on how they have began to utilize AI in various capacities in order to "strengthen its services." During this article, Barclays Chief Information Officer (CIO), Craig Bright, discusses how he is considering making the leap to artificial intelligence in order to better their brand. He states that the bank has begun to think about utilizing AI in a customer support and fraud protection capacity and additionally states that the bank has been using AI for a while now in an analytical capacity.
"At the bank, analytical AI has been in use for some time. This ‘traditional’ AI focuses on performing a specific task intelligently, that is, making smart decisions according to a specific set of rules. For example, we’ve been using this type of AI to manage risk within our organization, such as through voice recognition software to help enhance security for customers.
However, generative AI takes things a step further by learning the patterns of a store of data and generating something new. Chatbot services are probably the most well-known example of generative AI, but the technology’s applications in financial services present impressive opportunities as well as challenges. A 2023 report from McKinsey has found that generative AI could increase productivity by 3% to 5% – and reduce banking operating expenditures globally by up to $300bn...
While we’re looking forward to making the most of the opportunities that AI offers, we’re also mitigating the threats that can accompany them...
While analytical AI has long helped us manage fraud and money laundering risks, generative AI creates opportunities to help us reduce these even more – something that is absolutely essential for us as a bank." (Barclays, January 8, 2024)
After their CIO goes into detail on how AI has helped them to reduce various risks that are posed on their company, he speaks about how the bank has made a new, substantial investment into the technology, in the hopes of improving their current systems.
"The more we can do to help our colleagues, the more seamless, relevant and timely our customers’ experiences will be. In that way, AI can increasingly allow our customer service teams to free up their time, serve more people and get more done.
That applies across the bank, where we are working with our major partners to test out AI-enabled efficiencies. With Microsoft Copilot, we are exploring the potential to drive productivity across our workforce – using its generative AI capabilities to summarize meeting actions and synthesize detailed reports, for example – while AWS’s Bedrock helps us improve frontline customer engagement. And it’s not just about supporting frontline staff – we have 30,000 technologists, so improving their efficiency is a huge enabler for the organization." (Barclays, January 8, 2024)
As seen above, Barclays now joins an ever-growing group of corporations who have made the decision to invest large amounts of capital into AI technology and its applications in finance.
