How financial services sector executives are planning to tap AI

Delivering customer insight without cognitive bias, adding value to the in-moment experience and building commercial value are just some of the ways financial services executives believe artificial intelligence is going to transform their sector. Speaking on a panel of Australian financial services businesses at this week's Dreamforce conference, head of technology for Silver Chef, Vinnie D'Alessandro, said the commercial equipment financier is already a heavily data-driven organisation, tapping financial data as well as 30 years of product data in order to improve customer engagement. He saw the introduction of machine learning into the business as a way of removing bias and building an even better customer approach. "A lot of our data acquisition recently has been about understanding consumer behaviour and profiles for us to market to them effectively and use the right touchpoints to surface content that's relevant to them," he said. "Previously, my data architect would pour over databases and spreadsheets. We're now looking at machine learning and [Salesforce] Einstein to give us the insight without the cognitive bias. "Sometimes sales people who have been there for 20 years have a way of doing things and think they know exactly how it works.