IBM Is Buying One of the Most Influential Firms on Wall Street

IBM is getting into the business of advising Wall Street--using artificial intelligence. The tech firm agreed on Thursday to buy Promontory Financial Group--a global consulting firm that has advised Wall Street's biggest through the annual bank stress tests. Promontory's 600 some ex-regulators and former Wall Streeters will train IBM's artificial intelligence platform, Watson, how to advise financial institutions on regulatory compliance. "Promontory's professionals will train Watson, which will learn by continuously ingesting regulatory information as it is created and through interaction in real-world applications," IBM revealed in a press release, noting the surge in complex financial regulation following the financial crisis. "This is a workload ideally suited for Watson's cognitive capabilities intended to allow financial institutions to absorb the regulatory changes, understand their obligations, and close gaps in systems and practices to address compliance requirements more quickly and efficiently." Promontory has played consultant to banks including Citigroup, Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley, who gravitated toward the consulting firm due to its employee pool full of former top regulators.