JPMorgan CIO Says AI Holds Promise for Helping People Save

By Sara Castellanos 

NEW YORK -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Information Officer Lori Beer said artificial intelligence could help the bank develop new products and services for helping people build retirement savings, among other things.

"I do think we are uniquely positioned to really have an impact on how AI will address social-economic issues that provide wider access to financial services in our communities," Ms. Beer said, speaking at the AI Summit, a conference that focuses on AI's impact across different areas of business.

AI-based virtual assistants, for example, could be used to help consumers save money for retirement, Ms. Beer said, declining to give more details.

About 25% of working Americans say they have no retirement savings at all and 44% worry that their saving isn't on track, according to a recent Federal Reserve survey.

JPMorgan can tackle problems related to AI and socioeconomic issues in part because it has access to an enormous amount of data, Ms. Beer said. The bank, the country's largest by revenue, processes $6 trillion in payments daily and has relationships with about half of U.S. households.

It stores about 390 petabytes -- or 390 million gigabytes -- of data, ranging from information about its customers to data about credit-card transactions, Ms. Beer said. The bank also integrates details from about 7,500 alternative data sources, such as public financial statements, census data, social media, satellite images, news sources and market data.

World-wide spending on AI systems this year will be led by the retail and banking industries, according to International Data Corp. Banks are projected to invest more than $5 billion in AI in 2019, according to a September report from IDC, up from an estimated $4 billion in 2018. Investments are expected to focus on automated threat intelligence and fraud analysis, according to IDC.

JPMorgan is using AI in various parts of its business, including client services. A tool from software company Persado Inc. helps the bank tailor its marketing messages.

The bank is also using AI to automate repetitive and mundane tasks. A machine-learning model ingests all of the company's travel and expense data and does automatic audits, eliminating the need for managers to approve expenses, Ms. Beer said. It's "taking some bureaucracy out of our managers' hands," she added.

Write to Sara Castellanos at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 11, 2019 16:09 ET (21:09 GMT)

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