Daiwa Securities Group Inc employees are widely using an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot in Japan, as the nation’s second-largest brokerage follows global banks in exploring the potential of rapidly evolving technologies.
Daiwa CEO Seiji Nakata said the Tokyo-based firm started an experiment last month that permitted about 9,000 workers in Japan to “freely use” ChatGPT.
The company has also been bolstering its recruitment of science graduates to develop high-tech experts in-house, he said in an interview.
Photo: Reuters
The move comes as an AI revolution unfolds on Wall Street in response to widening interest in the technology and its likely business effects. Deutsche Bank AG is using it to scan wealthy client portfolios, while JPMorgan Chase & Co is advertising for more AI roles than any of its rivals.
“It will be able to do all kinds of things,” Nakata, 62, said about ChatGPT. “There are things that humans should handle, like negotiations in advising on mergers and acquisitions or for securities underwriting, but there are also routine tasks in the process that can be replaced.”
Daiwa is prioritizing training staff to become AI experts and data scientists partly because “the bar is high” for finding talented people elsewhere who are versed in those technologies as well as securities business, Nakata said.
Science, technology, engineering and math degree-holders accounted for about 21 percent of new college graduates hired by Daiwa this year, and the figure might reach 50 percent in the future, he said.
ChatGPT has the potential to streamline Daiwa’s retail business by helping salespeople identify financial products that would best fit their individual clients, Nakata said.
It might also help traders execute orders for corporate customers more efficiently, he added.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc analysts estimate that 300 million full-time jobs globally, including financial operations, could be exposed to automation by generative AI, a report released in March showed.
Still, Nakata said that no Daiwa employees have conveyed concerns to the top management that ChatGPT might take away their jobs.
Should AI replace some work, “you can move people into other areas of business where they can flourish,” he said. “We humans are the ones using the chatbot, not the other way around.”
In Taiwan, the financial industry is also debating whether to allow employees to use ChatGPT for daily work, but at least one of the major firm still wants to ban employees from it and other generative AI services as it aims to curb data leaks and ensure accurate information for customers.
SinoPac Financial Holdings Co (永豐金控) president Stanley Chu (朱士廷) on Thursday last week said that AI-generated content is based on Internet search results with no guarantee of information accuracy.
In addition, financial companies must address risks of data leakage as consumer data is confidential, he said.
SinoPac employees are prohibited from using the company’s computers and Internet services to access the generative AI services, Chu said.
Employees are also not allowed to use their PCs and mobile devices to upload the company’s internal data into generative AI services, he added.
The company would maintain such bans through August, when the Financial Supervisory Commission is expected to issue its guidance on financial industry’ use of generative AI services, Chu said.
Additional reporting by Kao Shih-ching
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