Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
Morgan Stanley has officially rolled out generative AI technology on Wall Street.
The bank is set to announce on Monday that its AI assistant, created with OpenAI’s latest generative AI software, is now “fully live” for all financial advisors and their support staff, according to a memo obtained by CNBC.
In the memo, Morgan Stanley co-President Andy Saperstein emphasized that “financial advisors will always be the center of Morgan Stanley wealth management’s universe” and expressed his belief in the transformative potential of generative AI to enhance client interactions, improve advisor efficiency, and allow more time for serving clients.
Morgan Stanley, a leading investment bank and wealth management powerhouse, made headlines in March when it revealed that it had been developing an AI assistant based on OpenAI’s GPT-4. While competitors like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase have also announced projects centered around generative AI, Morgan Stanley is the first major Wall Street firm to implement a tailored solution based on GPT-4 for its employees, according to Jeff McMillan, head of analytics, data, and innovation at Morgan Stanley wealth management.
Named the AI @ Morgan Stanley Assistant, this tool provides financial advisors with quick access to the bank’s “intellectual capital,” which includes a database of approximately 100,000 research reports and documents, as explained by McMillan during a recent interview.
By streamlining the process of answering questions related to markets, recommendations, and internal procedures, the assistant allows advisors and customer service employees to focus more on engaging with clients.
Human-like conversation
Although the tool appears as a simple text window, the development process involved ensuring that the program generates high-quality responses, according to McMillan. The bank dedicated months to curating documents and using human experts to test the responses.
One adjustment for advisors is that they are required to ask questions in the form of complete sentences, as if they were conversing with a human, rather than relying on keywords as they would with a search engine query, McMillan explained.
“You interact with this machine just like you would with a person when asking a question. People are not used to doing that,” he said.
This AI @ Morgan Stanley Assistant is just the first of a series of generative AI-based solutions planned by the bank. The firm is also currently testing a tool called Debrief, which automatically summarizes the content of client meetings and generates follow-up emails.
A game-changing technology
According to McMillan, using OpenAI’s software required a fundamentally different approach compared to previous technology initiatives. OpenAI’s ChatGPT leverages large language models (LLMs) to generate human-like responses to questions.
“The traditional way to solve these problems was to write code,” McMillan said. “In the new world, instead of writing code, you provide examples of what ‘good’ looks like, and the system learns what constitutes ‘good.’ It’s actually capable of ‘reasoning’ and applying logic, just like a human would.”
The excitement surrounding AI has impacted the stock market this year and compelled entire industries to consider its implications, leading some experts to declare it as the next foundational technology.
“I’ve never seen anything like this in my career, and I’ve been involved in artificial intelligence for 20 years,” McMillan remarked. “We recognized a completely disruptive opportunity and as an organization, we didn’t want to be left behind.”
