According to reports, after months of testing with 1,000 financial advisors, Morgan Stanley will launch a generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot later this month.
The artificial intelligence chatbot was developed by Morgan Stanley and ChatGPT developer OpenAI. This means that in the future, some wealthy clients who go to Morgan Stanley bankers to discuss investment matters may have a different experience: having a chatbot listen to their conversations.
With the client’s permission, AI chatbots will eventually be able to create meeting summaries of conversations, draft follow-up emails suggesting next steps, update the bank’s sales database, schedule follow-up appointments, and learn how to help advisors manage their clients’ finances, including Taxes, retirement savings and inheritances, and more.
Bankers, meanwhile, can use AI chatbots to quickly find research reports or tables without having to sift through hundreds of thousands of documents.
“The impact of artificial intelligence will be so significant that it will even rival the advent of the Internet,” said Sal Cucchiara, chief information officer (CIO) of Morgan Stanley Wealth and Investment Management, who has pushed Morgan Stanley into artificial intelligence. One of the executives.
Cucchiara is tasked with constantly scanning Silicon Valley for potential technology suppliers. Cucchiara met with OpenAI executives in 2022, before the AI chatbot ChatGPT became popular. “It became clear very quickly that we needed to work with them, they were way ahead of everyone else,” he said.
Andy Saperstein, co-president and head of wealth management at Morgan Stanley, then flew to California to discuss partnerships with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and the firm’s technologist, Boris Power. Last summer, Morgan Stanley signed an agreement with OpenAI to jointly develop artificial intelligence wealth management products.
While AI bots will provide insights and administrative support to financial advisors, investment recommendations will still be made by humans. “Advisors are still at the center,” Cucchiara said. For now, Morgan Stanley employees see the technology as a useful tool and aren’t concerned that they will be replaced by robots.
The artificial intelligence strategy is part of Morgan Stanley’s push to overhaul its wealth division, which saw a record 16% rise in net revenue in the second quarter of this year, as new client assets rose by $90 billion.
Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman has spearheaded a series of major deals that have pumped more money into the wealth business as he aims to reach $10 trillion in assets under management.
Morgan Stanley is not the only investment bank working on artificial intelligence. Indeed, many banks are already using AI to crunch some numbers, detect fraud and analyze customer transactions, while some of Wall Street’s biggest names are developing more sophisticated applications of generative AI capable of generating text, images and other data.
In June, JPMorgan Chase appointed Teresa Heitsenrether as chief data and analytics officer to lead the company’s artificial intelligence strategy. Rival Bank of America’s virtual assistant Erica has had more than 1 billion interactions with customers since its launch in 2018.
Additionally, Moody’s Analytics chief product officer Nick Reed said the company is also working with OpenAI and Microsoft on a research assistant that can be used by clients.
Big banks are leading the way in adopting artificial intelligence, but asset managers, traders and insurers are also following suit, said Michael Abbott, global banking leader at consultancy Accenture.
