As part of the Heard at Ops series, Alberto Jiménez of IBM describes the potential benefits of AI and how operations teams can position themselves for success, lowering costs while improving productivity. Watch the video and read the Q&A below.

Q. What is the biggest threat to the financial services industry?

In our presentation at SIFMA Ops, we shared a statistic stating that there is going to be a 10.3 million talent deficit of workers in the financial services industry – just for the largest 20 economies – by 2030.

In the current trajectory, where we have less available labor in the market to perform these functions to continue to fuel the growth of financial institutions, we need to find a way. We need to find a technological solution to increase productivity on a per-employee basis.

What that means is that we need to find ways in which technology can remove the repetitive, mundane tasks that fill many of the back-office roles today. I do think that artificial intelligence and foundational models, specifically, will have a fundamental role in realizing that vision.

Q. What is the potential of AI?

AI will have two manifestations in the industry:

1. The realization of the digital labor vision: This refers to software that has domain-specific expertise – for example, an expertise in H.R. or finance operations – that can assist a human employee and remove some of those repetitive tasks from their daily work.
2. The ability for an author to create these automations for the first time: This requires domain expertise as well as technical expertise.

A very important aspect of automating labor is making sure that there’s no association with unemployment; that these two things don’t equate to each other. During my presentation, I refer to a study that showed that 95% of all occupations need human cognition and cannot be fully automated by technology*.

*McKinsey Global Institute analysis; A future that works: Automation, employment, and productivity

Q. How can operations teams position themselves for success now and into the future?

I’ve seen very successful models where operational teams have centers of shared services for automation.

What this accomplishes is that they have tools – software tools – as well as the skills to support line-of-business customers inside of the organization. It lowers the initial investment and reduces the implementation risks because there are experts that can guide them through the journey of automating a process for the first time.

Alberto Jiménez is the Vice President of Product Management for the IBM Business Automation division.

Watch his presentation from SIFMA Ops 2023: Shorter Settlement – AI and Automation

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