In a recent American Banker op-ed, CEO of Synchrony Margaret Keane made the bold statement that “AI innovation must be for all.” Keane argues that companies have both a business and moral imperative to train existing employees to work with emerging artificial intelligence technologies.
She is right — and not simply because it is the right thing to do. Corporate-wide training is the only way to ensure the success of these new technologies.
AI has the potential to bring efficiency and precision to bank operations, like marketing and fraud detection, while its customer-facing uses could help extend credit and new financial services to more consumers. But at the end of the day, it won’t be just data scientists who are using AI — it will be the sales teams, the fraud analysts, the relationship managers and the contact center employees.
Yes, we will still have contact centers. AI is being used in bank contact centers to filter calls for efficiency and security, but contact center employees must still resolve complex questions and complaints that the AI cannot. And if the employee finally picking up the phone on the other end of the line doesn’t understand…
