Generative AI represents a paradigm shift in the way we approach creativity and innovation. However, given banking is one of the most highly regulated industries, generative AI adoption could be tricky.  Srikanth Gopalakrishnan Head of the India Technology Centre at Deutsche Bank Group, during the ongoing Cypher2023 event, India’s largest AI conference, said that we should tread carefully as we venture into this new frontier, taking into account the ethical challenges it poses and strive for a measured and responsible adoption.

As we leverage the capabilities of generative AI, all the while safeguarding the unique attributes of human creativity, we can unlock a future where technology and human ingenuity harmoniously coexist. This harmonious coexistence, according to Gopalakrishnan, promises a more dynamic and enhanced society.

“In regulated industries like banking or the medical industry, there is a lot of homework that has been done and a lot of R&D that’s being done in order for us to get to where we think the benefits of AI are going to be good,” Gopalakrishnan said.

Explainability is key

Gopalakrishnan said for banks to leverage this technology, they need to be 100 percent sure that the technology works. Given Large Language Models (LLMs) still hallucinate, leveraging the technology for customer-facing domains could prove to be tricky.

“You can’t just say invest in the stock and leave it at that. The ‘trust me’ is not going to work. The ‘trust me’ must also have explainability. And that is why certain industries (like banking) will have to be extra careful about how to take this forward in a viable fashion.

“We still need explainability and we’ve been talking to Google, NVIDIA and others, and they are all working on essentially marking up the explainability aspect within the code that they have. First of all, it needs to give confidence to us internally, give confidence to customers and the regulators as well,” he said.

However, he feels there are a few areas in banking where generative AI can be adopted without much to worry about regulation. Customer service is one of those areas, Gopalakrishnan said.

“I believe the volume of business can actually go up in terms of how to actually interact and reach out to customers. We are talking about bots being available, personalised responses being provided.”

Other areas where banks can leverage generative AI are risk management and fraud detection.

Future-proofing of jobs

Moreover, in this talk, Gopalakrishnan also touches upon the ongoing discussion of the impact of generative on jobs. 

“We have a large number of graduates joining us every year and I have been talking to them; because someone who is relatively new to the industry, they might have to redefine themselves at least three to four times in their career,” he said.

“So it’s important for us to start understanding that when you are talking about AI, and the formation that will bring about the traditional jobs, repetitive tasks are going to go away, in fact, they are already going away.”

Even jobs that require a certain level of intelligence from a human to be able to make a decision will also probably go away, Gopalakrishnan said.

“However, people’s jobs’ will not go away in the sense that you will be out of a job.” The ability to learn and relearn is essential, regardless of career stage.

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