As an AI expert, Mathilde Brousse , Harvest’s Head of Data Analytics & AI, shares her informed view on the role of AI in the daily lives of wealth management and finance professionals, and the strategies implemented within the Harvest group to take advantage of this technological revolution.
Hello Mathilde, can you introduce yourself?
Graduating from a business school with a Master’s degree in Data Sciences gave me a dual technical and commercial background. After working as a Data Consultant and Product Manager, I now head up the Data Analytics & AI Harvest team.
Our mission is to collect, transform and analyse the data generated by our applications into usable indicators, enabling business teams to make strategic decisions. We have a particular focus on thinking up and designing new functionalities that best meet our customers’ needs. Since last year, we have been paying particular attention to integrating artificial intelligence into our work and thinking. We ensure that we proactively bring maximum added value to the design of software solutions for asset managers.
AI is a rapidly evolving technology. Can you explain what AI and generative AI are?
Artificial intelligence is a set of mathematical models and algorithms used to automate tasks and find patterns in data that the human brain is not capable of finding on its own.
It’s not a new term, having first appeared in 1956. Researchers have been working on this subject for years, and we’re already interacting with artificial intelligence without really knowing it, as with recommendation algorithms on Amazon or Netflix, for example. There have also been scoring and allocation algorithms in trading and finance for a long time.
Generative artificial intelligence (generative AI) is a branch of artificial intelligence focused on the creation of new and original data or content, such as images, texts, sounds, videos, etc., from pre-existing models. Unlike conventional AI systems, which can be used to classify, predict or analyze existing data, generative AI models have the ability to create new data that resembles the original dataset, but is not necessarily an exact replica.
This technology is often based on artificial neural networks, such as generative adversarial networks (GANs) or recurrent neural networks (RNNs), which are trained on a dataset to learn how to generate new examples that resemble those in the training dataset. Generative AI finds applications in diverse fields such as the automatic generation of artistic content, data synthesis, script and dialogue creation, music generation and many others.
How do you think generative AI will impact, or is already impacting, the wealth management and finance sector?
Generative AI will have an impact on virtually all business sectors over the next few years. We have identified three major use cases that apply to wealth management.
The first is content creation, for example, file editing. AI can help professionals generate meeting minutes or documents used as part of the compliance path faster.
The second major use case is interaction with documents or a document base to facilitate access to information. Until now, we’ve needed to spend time searching for information. Now, we can have « assistants » who will synthesize documents and find the various pieces of information needed to answer a question. We can clearly see the benefits for wealth managers, who have access to a substantial and constantly evolving volume of legal, tax and financial information. Generative AI also makes it possible to summarize different exchanges automatically, highlighting key points in preparation for a meeting, for example.
The third use case is Chatbot. AI enables real interactions with customers, faster and sometimes easier. Typically, we could imagine an assistant that will identify people to call back, update their information or do automated follow-up. It’s a real time-saver for optimized customer relationship management!
Artificial intelligence is also capable of identifying anomalies (an outstanding standing order, for example) and then generating actions. Last but not least, it can help generate wealth management recommendations and product or investment recommendations.
What are the main benefits for the profession?
There are two main benefits: time savings and business development. Certain subjects, such as regulatory compliance, can be optimized thanks to artificial intelligence tools. This will free up precious time for CGPs, who will be able to devote more time to high value-added missions in terms of customer advice and business development.
Where does Harvest stand in terms of AI integration?
Several projects are underway on AI. We are acculturating and training our staff so that we can integrate this technology wisely into our business, in the service of our customers, with a test-and-learn approach. We’re also testing the integration of AI into our tools, which we’ll be telling you about shortly.