THE banking sector is on the cusp of a technological upheaval, with ZB Bank's chief executive officer Elisha Chibvuri forecasting that artificial intelligence (AI) will displace some jobs due to its superior efficiency.
The rise in AI has already started wreaking havoc across financial markets on a global scale, as AI is now performing some of the automated systems.
In an economy where businesses are looking to cut costs, the first set of expenses that companies typically look to cut are jobs.
Responding to questions during a panel discussion on 'Unlocking Value with Artificial Intelligence', at a conference last week, Chibvuri said AI would take simple and routine jobs in the banking industry.
He made the remarks at the Institute of Bankers Zimbabwe Summer Conference held in Victoria Falls last week.
“I think one of our presenters….talked about whether AI does a better job at employment or not. What I can simply say is it has a chance to take all of the sample jobs, especially the routine ones,” Chibvuri said.
“The emphasis will be going forward, especially in banking institutions, will be to go to those jobs that require solid skills, and they will be the ones that will be more demanding. The ones that can be done on a routine basis suddenly can be taken over. So, the challenge is for the employee to reach and say, what new skills can they put in?”
He added: “But, I believe the impact that we are going to see in the banking sector will be seen in the broader sectors as well. It is about changing the skillset.”
In an interview, AI expert and founder of the Rubiem Consulting Group, Dennis Magaya said with the systems being automated, AI could perform faster and more reliably than humans.
“AI is a computer system that mimics intelligence found in human beings. AI can process huge volumes of data quicker and more accurately than human beings. So, there are some tasks that AI can perform better than human beings,” he said.
“For instance, reconciliations, generating reports, resolving customer queries in a call centre, on-boarding customers, and processing loan applications. In areas such as auditing, compliance, and risk management AI can be used to process millions of transaction data on a real-time basis, learn from the data, and make decisions.”
He added that some marketing tasks, such as generating advertisements, could also be done by AI, thus threatening bank workers.
“Bear in mind that AI does not sleep, take leave, or engage in politics,” Magaya said.
He also noted how AI came with a cost-cutting effect, reliability, and higher productivity.
“When AI and humans are deployed to complement each other, better results are produced. AI also brings natural language processing, enabling people to communicate with technology in their natural language. The communication can be via written or audio,” Magaya said.
“AI brings machine learning, which is the ability of computing systems to learn from data and make decisions without human intervention. AI has computer vision capability, which means the technology can recognise images and patterns that it can see like humans. So, AI can mimic the human senses of hearing, seeing, and feeling. AI robots do not sleep, fall sick, or get tired. As a result, they have higher productivity.”