“Say goodbye to your bank teller and your insurance agent” is the opening line of a just released Fast Company article titled, “AI Could Kill 2.5 Million Financial Jobs – And Save Banks $1 Trillion.”
Google just announced the launch of “Duplex,” an AI application that can call and make appointments for you with the party on the other end of the line thinking it’s a human. There’s a resume scanning program that can review 1,500 resumes an hour (good luck to job seekers trying to stand out in the crowd).
Fast Company based their article on research from the firm Autonomous that recently issued an 84-page report on this and predicts:
- Software agents (machines) will hold conversations with clients.
- AI will oversee the ever more complex regulations department with real-time oversight of the company’s actions.
- AI will determine credit risk, insurance underwriting, assess claims damage using machine vision, and select investments (don’t investment firms already use computers to time trades?).
Over half of what I do with/for my clients is advise, counsel, and provide quasi-therapy versus analytical work like spreadsheets, reviewing documents, etc. I think we’re a long way off from when machines can offer the “personal touch.”
Maybe they will replace some jobs like insurance agents or claims adjustors. But I wonder how many people will really want this. It, again, goes back to John Naisbitt’s statement about how the more high tech we get the more high touch we’ll need. Interesting times indeed.
“The use of life is to spend it for something that outlasts it.” Willam James