We employ some of the brightest and best in professional services, but too much of their time and talent is taken up in research tasks that fail to inspire them. Take our Financial Services Risk and Regulation team – their role is to provide accurate, up-to-date advice on this crucial and increasingly complex area, but the sheer volume of information that needs to be assimilated to do that is growing exponentially. This is one area where AI comes into play – we can now use an AI powered assistant to do the first stage of information processing, using technology tools that can cope with both structured and more importantly unstructured data. That helps speed up research tasks, and frees up time to focus on the intellectual challenges of an engagement turning the gathered information into deep insights. And the best bit is that the tools get cleverer over time: thanks to the inherent machine learning capabilities, the more you use them, the more precise results will be delivered at the first pass.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is really big right now. Big news and big possibilities, but some big questions too, not least about how to get the best out of it. Could it really eliminate whole categories of jobs, as research by Oxford University suggests?[1] Or could it help make all of us smarter, more efficient, and more fulfilled in our work by doing the essential but repetitive tasks, and mundane activities that human beings do not excel at? Transformation is an overused word in the business world, but this is one case where it's justified.