Synchrony minds HR as it develops AI

Synchrony Financial, a bank and a provider of cobranded credit card programs, is deploying artificial intelligence in myriad ways: It's using machine learning to detect fraudulent transactions, robotics process automation to handle mundane operations tasks, and a virtual assistant named Sydney to answer basic questions by text chat. "We'll see AI across the company," Margaret Keane, Synchrony's CEO, said in an interview. "We've taken an active stance and worked with McKinsey to study the areas of our company that could be most impacted." At the same time, Keane says, the company is trying to be conscientious about how these deployments will affect employees. "Some people are saying 40% of jobs will go away," she said.