Morgan Stanley Introduces AI Chatbot to Attract High Net Worth Clients
In the future, affluent clients seeking investment advice from a Morgan Stanley financial adviser might encounter a unique experience where a chatbot attentively listens to their conversation.
After testing it with 1,000 financial advisors for a few months, this month the bank is rolling out a generative AI bot developed with the creators of ChatGPT, OpenAI.
Instead of sifting through hundreds of thousands of documents, bankers can use a virtual assistant to quickly find research or forms.
The bank is also developing technology that, with the customers’ permission, could eventually create a meeting summary of the conversation, prepare a follow-up email suggesting next steps, update the bank’s sales database, schedule a follow-up appointment, and learn how to help advisors manage their customers’ finances, including taxes, pension savings, and inheritances. Details of the program have not yet been announced.
“The impact of artificial intelligence is going to be very significant,” potentially comparable to the advent of the Internet, said Sal Cucchiara, a spokesman for wealth and investment management at Morgan Stanley, who is one of the bank’s executives driving the bank’s investment in artificial intelligence.
Cucchiara, tasked with constantly scouting potential tech suppliers in Silicon Valley, met with OpenAI executives in 2022, before the fast-growing app ChatGPT went public.
“It quickly became clear that we had to work with them, they were way ahead of the rest,” he said.
Andy Saperstein, Morgan Stanley’s co-chairman and head of wealth management, then flew to California to discuss the collaboration with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Boris Power, a member of the company’s technical staff.
Last summer, they signed an agreement in which Morgan Stanley has chosen wealth management over product development. Executives from the two companies celebrated at a dinner hosted by Saperstein, who was a candidate to be the bank’s next CEO.
OpenAI declined to comment.
Although the robot provides insights and administrative support to financial advisors, Investment advice remains the responsibility of humans.
“The council is still in the middle,” Cucchiara said. So far, workers see the technology as a useful tool and aren’t worried about being replaced by robots, he said.
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The AI initiative is part of Morgan Stanley’s strategy to grow the wealth division, which saw net sales grow 16% to a record in the second quarter and new client assets grew by $90 billion.
CEO James Gorman, who has led several big deals that funneled more money into the wealth business, is aiming to reach $10 trillion in assets under management.
Morgan Stanley is not alone in its AI efforts. While banks already use AI to crunch numbers, detect fraud and analyze customer transactions, Wall Street giants are developing more sophisticated uses for generative AI capable of producing text, images and other data.
JP Morgan Chase appointed Teresa Heitsenrether chief information and analytics officer in June to lead the implementation of artificial intelligence at the largest US lender. Rival Bank of America’s virtual assistant Erica has had more than a billion interactions with customers since it was introduced in 2018.
Elsewhere, Moody’s Analytics is also working with OpenAI and Microsoft to develop a research assistant that clients can use, says Nick Reed, its director of product.
Big banks are the most advanced among financial firms in adopting AI, but asset managers, traders and insurance companies are also adopting it, said Michael Abbott, global banking director at consultancy Accenture.
“We’re starting to see AI-led customer service spread among the biggest banks,” said Abbott, who is working on hundreds of case studies with lenders using AI.
