AI is a broad term covering multiple fields. For AML professionals, perhaps the most relevant subfield of AI is machine learning, which refers to the use of algorithms to continually improve a task, without the need for human intervention. Machine learning algorithms search for patterns within a given data set. Repeated recognition of patterns allows an algorithm to make ever more swift and accurate predictions. According to a survey of 296 UK-based AML professionals conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit, the areas where respondents believe AI and advanced analytics can best be applied to combat money laundering are suspicious activity reporting (45%) and transaction monitoring (43%).

The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) is providing financial services institutions with major opportunities for improving their client offerings, operations and compliance. Ben Nadel, Director at independently-minded management consultancy Woodhurst, explores four key areas where AI can ramp up effectiveness and efficiency while lowering costs. The rise of challenger banks has demonstrated how technology can drastically improve customer experience. Thirteen million people in the UK use challenger banks today, and that number is set to triple in the coming year. In order to remain competitive, traditional financial service providers are turning to emerging technology, including AI, to improve their customer experience.

The banking industry has been quite resistant to change ever since its beginnings. But financial services are not immune to the biggest technological revolution the word has attested caused by AI. Apart from being under pressure to adapt to the digital economy, banks have started to discover some really valuable AI use cases. AI has made progressive inroads in the financial sector and is reshaping banks' approach to their people, processes and data. From customer service automation with chatbots, security, fraud prevention and detection, all the way to internal process optimisation, the AI is transforming the traditional way banks work.

Since its inception as an academic field in 1956, Artificial Intelligence has gone through a boom-and-bust cycle with proponents alternating between wild optimism and disappointment over a lack of technological or commercial breakthroughs. Since the introduction of the first smartphone in 2007, however, there has been continuous exponential growth in computing power and an explosion in human connectivity. This has meant vastly more and better data to analyse, and since there is now enough computing power to do so at a manageable cost, AI algorithms are performing much better. The rise of Big Data means that consumers interact with AI on a daily basis, through chat bots, virtual assistants, online shopping and media, biometric identification and fraud detection, to name a few examples. AI has entered the mainstream because it is now creating commercial value.

Aida is the perfect employee: always courteous, always learning and, as she says, "always at work, 24/7, 365 days a year." Aida, of course, is not a person but a virtual customer-service representative that SEB AB, one of Sweden's biggest banks, is rolling out. The goal is to give the actual humans more time to engage in more complex tasks. After blazing a trail in online and digital banking, Sweden's financial industry is now emerging as a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Besides Aida at SEB, there's Nova, which is a chatbot Nordea Bank is introducing at its life and pensions unit in Norway.

Aida is the perfect employee: always courteous, always learning and, as she says, "always at work, 24/7, 365 days a year." Aida, of course, is not a person but a virtual customer service representative that SEB AB, one of Sweden's biggest banks, is rolling out. The goal is to give the actual humans more time to engage in more complex tasks. After blazing a trail in online and digital banking, Sweden's financial industry is now emerging as a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence. Besides Aida at SEB, there's Nova, which is a chatbot Nordea Bank AB is introducing at its life and pensions unit in Norway.

Aida is the perfect employee: always courteous, always learning and, as she says, "always at work, 24/7, 365 days a year." Aida, of course, is not a person but a virtual customer-service representative that SEB AB, one of Sweden's biggest banks, is rolling out. The goal is to give the actual humans more time to engage in more complex tasks. After blazing a trail in online and digital banking, Sweden's financial industry is now emerging as a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence. Besides Aida at SEB, there's Nova, which is a chatbot Nordea Bank AB is introducing at its life and pensions unit in Norway. Swedbank AB is adding to the skills of its virtual assistant, Nina.

Nordea is on the hunt for startups developing new applications in artificial intelligence and blockchain-based products for its next fintech accelerator programme which kicks off in the autumn in Stockholm and Helsinki.