Programmers.io Experts Speak: Deeply Embedding AI in the Financial Sector

Programmers.io Experts Speak: Deeply Embedding AI in the Financial Sector

It’s no secret that generative AI is making waves across countless industries; not only offering new ventures into automation and highly advanced data analytics but also connecting businesses with their consumers in an unprecedented and highly personalized way. Industry leaders are racing to incorporate AI throughout their sales and product lifecycle, especially in the case of the financial services industry. According to a study conducted in August 2023 among U.S. financial organizations, a staggering 99% of financial services industry leaders have adopted AI for at least one business function.

With the benefits of AI clearly stated and well-documented across a diverse set of industries, implementing AI into their business has been the clear solution for many. However, many financial companies are struggling to implement AI beyond the basic functions needed to stay competitive in the modern digital age.

Bhuvan Pasham – a lauded professional originally from the financial services industry – is the Chief Technology Officer at Programmers.io and comments on the level of readiness of industry professionals. “Most of the industry conversations about generative AI in financial services remain just high-level talk and theory,” Bhuvan states. “While practice and execution are often lagging far behind.” Although the benefits remain clear, industry professionals struggle with concerns addressing a broad sense of skepticism about AI and a lack of commitment from leadership.

AI Benefits and Implications: How Financial Services is Especially Impacted

In this early stage of implementation, companies are only just diving into the benefits of generative AI. One of AI’s main strengths is its ability to efficiently handle and identify trends in large amounts of data, effectively enabling businesses to create faster, more accurate, and more personable client experiences. This application is perfect for the financial services industry, particularly in the fields of lending, AMFL, and banking, given the need to extract and extrapolate a diverse set of data points, as well as identify and take advantage of trends that might not be readily apparent to the human eye.

Additionally, humans can work in tandem with AI to standardize and simplify lending decisions, reducing the risk of non-payment and default in the process. While this is unquestionably a good thing for financial institutions themselves, a widespread decrease in the risk of defaults can have much broader implications. “I believe that, because of AI, credit will be used in a much smarter way.” Bhuvan comments. “Utilizing vast amounts of available data, AI can easily determine what a borrower can and cannot afford. What’s more, the financial services industry and regulators have come a long way on regulation and compliance, so the chances of triggering the crises we’ve seen in the past are low.” By proactively avoiding unnecessary risk, economic growth will be much more sustainable and less susceptible to crashes and other crises.

Bhuvan also notes that most of the main growth drivers of the US stock market are companies that are involved in AI, on the software or hardware sides alike. “Unlike the dot-com bubble that was fueled by hype and speculation before finally bursting in the early 2000s,” Bhuvan remarks. “...the major AI stocks are backed by actual revenue. This means that the growth caused by the rising demand for computing power is genuine.” According to Bhuvan, once AI has been integrated to a foundational level within the financial services industry, it will serve to level the playing field and give businesses a cutting competitive edge.

Unleashing the Full Power of Generative AI

With these examples in mind, the current level of AI application may appear comprehensive to some, but the financial services industry has yet to harness Gen AI’s capabilities to the fullest. Few companies are implementing it in a fundamental, enterprise-wide way – with concrete use cases. Programmers.io believes that Gen AI will have a much wider and more beneficial impact on the financial services industry if it is applied not just in basic principle, but foundationally within the business. This means that AI would not just be window dressing or on the periphery, but rather, integrated into the business’ DNA and influencing its core operations. Centralizing and structuring all data sources, both numerical and internal, is essential for unleashing the full power of generative AI.

And AI’s abilities and impact on the industry are only growing. In 2024, the AI industry is poised to shift from the training of large language models to their widespread deployment and use, marking a significant increase in inferencing workloads. This surge is anticipated as AI solutions developed in 2023 finally reach the market. As a result, the demand for inferencing is expected to double that of training by mid-decade, driving an urgent need for enhanced computing power and infrastructure development to support the growing use of generative AI technologies.

Unlike other software that merely reacts to market trends, Programmers.io is proactively addressing growth concerns and putting fingers to keys. One of the key benefits of Programmers.io’s AI approach is integrating non-numerical, non-traditional data for financial services clients; such as documents, news articles, customer feedback, sentiment analysis on social media, and fed reports – all important parts of the data infrastructure. When correctly used, this allows financial services companies to improve their risk prediction, fraud detection and credit decisions, amongst other things.

Bhuvan states, “From a client’s perspective, many of them want solutions that address their pain points and create benefits for their business. This is why we are constantly investing in minimum viable products, testing them with our engineers, and sharing them with our clients, while continually refining them to meet their needs.”

Case Study: Using Generative AI in Mortgage Underwriting

One specific use case of how Programmers.io has harnessed generative AI is the Mortgage Approvals Workflow Accelerator (MAW), a program that assists mortgage underwriters in completing due diligence on mortgage applications. MAW creates a unified conversational interface that simplifies a mortgage underwriter’s application review process. When an application is received, mortgage underwriters can offload information to a Gen AI backed chatbot that can analyze and validate the data received. If there is any data missing, MAW can reach out to the applicant and collect missing data on behalf of the mortgage officer. When the file is returned to the underwriter, the review is succinctly summarized and presented along with the mandates and rules for compliance of that application. This case study was shown to reduce the time mortgage officers and underwriters take to approve loans by 70%, as well as increased customer satisfaction due to improved simplicity and clarity in the approval and funding processes.

Programmers.io is creating its own AI solutions to ensure the delivery of real, tangible results to the financial services industry. The firm works with some of the world’s leading companies in the wealth management and banking sectors, where, through its partnerships with major large language models (LLMs), Programmers.io has access to the extensive language libraries that result in much more powerful AI tools. Bhuvan and many of the Programmers.io financial services engineers are even designing FinTech apps themselves, giving them an understanding of how the industry works and how technology can be leveraged to deliver outsized returns for clients.

Conclusion

Deeply embedding AI into your business functions will not only bury overhead costs and boost revenue, but drive sustainable growth for the future as AI solutions evolve alongside your business. The key to implementation lies in having the right software partner on your side – one with a sophisticated knowledge base and deep understanding of the issues that face your industry. Programmers.io will work with you as a true partner, and can assist in all areas of conceptualization, integration, and support. Expertly crafted and embedded AI will only harmonize and enhance the abilities of your staff – not hinder them. AI isn’t going away anytime soon. Make sure your business is at the forefront of the modern Intelligence Revolution.