Reported by Ryan Browne and MacKenzie Sigalos

Major banks and fintech companies claim to be piling into generative artificial intelligence as the hype surrounding the buzzy technology shows no signs of fizzling out — but there are lingering fears about potential pitfalls and risks.

At the Money 20/20 fintech conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands, executives at large lenders and online finance firms sang the praises of generative AI, calling it an “explosion of innovation,” and saying it will “unleash innovation in areas that we can’t even think about.”

Chalapathy Neti, head of AI at global bank messaging network Swift, described the progress made with ChatGPT and GPT-4 as “mind-boggling.” He added, “This is truly a transformative moment.”

But in the short term, banks are scrambling to figure out the use cases.

The Netherlands’ ABN Amro is one banking giant that’s piloting the use of generative AI in its processes.

Annerie Vreugdenhil, chief commercial officer of ABN Amro’s personal and business banking division, revealed on a panel that it is using the technology to automatically summarize conversations between bank staff and customers. It’s also using it to help its employees gather data on customers to assist with answering queries and avoid repetitive questions.

The bank is now in the process of scaling these pilots to 200 employees and is exploring a number of new pilots to start this summer.

In a closed-door session on the application of AI in financial services, meanwhile, two banking executives explained how they’re using the technology to improve their internal code and analyze how their clients are behaving.

A.I. ‘co-pilot’

These are just some examples of how financial firms are using AI, but more as a digital helper than as a core part of their services.

Gudmundur Kristjansson, CEO and co-founder of Icelandic regulatory technology firm Lucinity, showed CNBC how artificial intelligence can be used to assist with a key area in finance: fighting crime.

An AI tool the company created, called Luci, aims to help compliance professionals with their investigations. In a live demonstration, Kristjansson showed himself looking into a money laundering case. The AI tool analyzed the case and described what it saw and then completed an independent review.

Read full report: https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/06/13/banks-are-talking-up-ai-amid-chatgpt-buzz-but-keeping-its-use-limited.html