by Maurizio Primanni, CEO at Gruppo Excellence
From the columns of this newspaper we have often recalled how important it is for the financial advisor to combine the aspect of technical/financial/relational skills and knowledge with technological ones. We know well how the growth of the networks, which since their advent have gradually increased the acquisition of market shares to the detriment of commercial banks, is due in part to the use of tools such as robo-advisors. Today, artificial intelligence poses new challenges. Investments and attention towards it must be no less advanced and rapid than its diffusion.
Let’s think about what is happening with generative artificial intelligence, i.e. its use for the creation of new content, such as texts, images, music, audio and video, which is creating not only ethical but also employment and trade union problems in the world of intellectual professions.
It is therefore positive that the European Parliament passed the Artificial Intelligence Act to protect fundamental rights and democracy from high-risk artificial intelligence, while stimulating innovation. The UN General Assembly has also just adopted by consensus the resolution prepared by the US calling for standards to address the risks of artificial intelligence.
According to McKinsey, the AI market in banking will be worth over 1,000 billion dollars by 2030, 60% of which will be allocated to applications used to support marketing and sales. In Italy, the financial sector is starting to approach artificial intelligence in an increasingly decisive way.
According to our research, carried out in 2023 with Dataski.11s, a company in our group specialized in data science and analytics, artificial intelligence innovation is expanding its areas of application in banking: service models, customer experience, commercial campaigns, evolution of the offer, optimization of internal processes, governance, risk management etc.
If used appropriately, artificial intelligence can certainly improve the consultant’s activity, helping him not only to govern a greater number of clients, manage his information more efficiently and personalize consultancy, but even to overcome digital divides, so as to bridge the misalignment that often still persists between the consultant and digital technologies.
It is essential, in addition to having a coherent and systemic approach on the critical success factors (corporate culture, governance, skills, monitoring of data quality, management of innovation and compliance models), to prepare artificial intelligence tools designed to measure consultant. It will be the latter who, paradoxically, will have to, “actively and not passively”, change habits.
The machine will have to adapt to the consultant, who must maintain that human specificity, those empathetic and emotional qualities that are the heart and added value of consultancy. The machine will not replace the professional if the latter is able to change while maintaining his originality.
