Citizens Financial Group explored over 90 different use cases for generative artificial intelligence. Out of these, only two have gone into production so far. The bank has taken a thoughtful approach to generative AI, including the creation of a steering committee to ensure employees aren’t going rogue and developing their own projects.
The two generative AI use cases that Citizens Financial will implement this year include an enterprise search tool that assists customer service representatives in answering questions and a GitHub Copilot, developed by Microsoft and OpenAI, to enhance the productivity of the company’s software engineers.
A majority of bank organizations are either in production or have gone live with generative AI use cases, often focused on client engagement, risk and compliance, information technology, and other support functions. Financial services is a technology-led business, and while it starts ahead of many other sectors, the industry can also be cautious in terms of really making sure you get it right and the use cases that go into the market always have a human in the loop.
Many early wins for the industry have been in adopting generative AI tools to assist customer service. At Citizens Financial, the new generative AI tool that’s helping customer representatives doesn’t directly reach clients, as the bank wants to continue to test the responses that are given and is still keeping an eye out for hallucinations, which are responses that an AI model can produce that are misleading or outright false.
With major players like Google and Amazon launching AI solutions, as well as thousands of startups, Citizens Financial took a safe bet by leveraging the company’s existing relationships with Microsoft and Amazon Web Services, the cloud providers the company works with as part of Citizens’ hybrid strategy that also includes Amazon Web Services. North American banks are leading in AI innovation, according to a recent report published by Evident Insights, which says JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, and Royal Bank of Canada are at the forefront of AI innovation.
Read more: fortune.com