Customer service for kindle

The highly anticipated release of GPT-4, the latest iteration of OpenAI’s groundbreaking language model, has sent ripples of excitement throughout the banking and fintech industry. As ChatGPT’s capabilities expand, the traditional roles of personal finance management and financial advisors may soon become obsolete, paving the way for a new era of customized and intelligent financial solutions.

The latest release of GTP-4 shows how quick ChatGPT is evolving. Industry giants like Microsoft MSFT and fintech firms like Stripe recently announced integrations of ChatGTP-4, while banks like Morgan Stanley Wealth have publicly announced their internal adoption. With its increased ability to deliver empathetic advice, potential for providing personalized insights, and delivery of real-time information, the ChatGTP-4 and beyond is a dream come true for innovators in financial services and technology.

Consumer Expectations: The New Normal

Big tech players like Amazon AMZN and Spotify have already transformed how we expect services and products to be delivered. As AI virtual assistants become increasingly sophisticated, offering personalized advice and support in our daily lives, it’s only a matter of time before we demand the same level of service from our financial institutions. Traditional banking chatbots and static information may soon seem antiquated in comparison. Imagine consumers using ChatGPT daily for a few months and then using the chatbot on offer from their bank. The bank would surely let their expectations down due to a lack of personalization, relevance, and speed consumers could become accustomed to using ChatGTP.

The Demise of Basic Personal and Business Finance Management Apps

While unavailable in this iteration, there is no reason to believe that ChatGPT and open banking cannot go hand in hand to provide hyper-personalization. In particular, the potential to process and analyze personal financial data securely and in real-time, thanks to open banking, can render traditional personal finance management (PFM) and business finance management (BFM) apps obsolete. ChatGPT could individually outperform every savings or PFM / BPM app on the market by offering highly personalized recommendations for cost-cutting or optimal utilization of reserve cash. Organizations that harness ChatGPT in their financial management experiences would gain an immediate competitive advantage.

Financial Advisors: A Role in Jeopardy

As we move beyond GPT-4 , the prospect of it supplanting human financial advisors grows increasingly likely. While it currently cannot offer financial or tax advice, envisioning a future where AI-driven technology revolutionizes traditional financial advisors’ role is not necessarily far-fetched.

For instance, AI-powered robo-advisors may become even more sophisticated, offering personalized, data-driven investment recommendations based on a user’s financial goals, risk tolerance, and time horizon. Imagine the following scenario:

1. A user uploads their monthly bank statement or provides real-time access via open banking.
2. They tell ChatGPT in a simple way (think no endless forms and fields to fill out) their retirement, savings and family goals for their finances.
3. ChatGPTs provide a robo-advisory like service. Delivered in real time, driven by real-time, personalized data, and in a way that feels almost like a human.

The rise of AI like GPT-4 highlights the power of big data and its potential to transform the banking industry. Alessandro Hatami, founder of Pacemakers.io and Author, suggests that “the key to GPT’s impact on banking lies in mass hyper-personalization and a new level of service typically reserved for high-net-worth individuals. Combining GPT technology with next-gen core banking, BaaS, and open banking could provide everyday consumers with virtual relationship managers akin to those that millionaires and billionaires rely on.”

The GPT-ification of Banking

As the dawn of the GPT era looms, retail banks, business banks, private banks, and fintechs are presented with a once in a generation opportunity. The hyper-personalization inherent in ChatGPTs capabilities holds the potential to transform the financial services landscape radically, setting a new standard for customer experience and engagement. It could also help millions better manage their financial lives.

The question remains whether the banking industry will adapt swiftly enough to harness the full potential of GPT-4 and beyond or if it will be left behind in the AI revolution. For those who seize the moment and incorporate AI-driven hyper-personalization, the rewards are vast, paving the way for a new era for hypepersonlization of financial management and allowing innovative organizations to create and monetize next-generation, data-driven products, and services.

TALKTALK is investigating a mysterious outage preventing people from accessing their emails.

Customers have reported problems sending and receiving emails as they start a new week.

A spike in reports was noticed on the Down Detector site at about 10.30am.

And by 11.45am the company admitted there was an issue.

“We’re aware that some webmail customers are experiencing issues sending and receiving emails,” TalkTalk said on Twitter.

“We’d like to assure you that we’re investigating the matter as a priority and apologise for the inconvenience caused.”

It’s not yet clear what has caused the problem.

But TalkTalk customers have been quick to vent their frustration on social media .

“Me and my mum can’t even get into ours to even view our email it been timing out all day,” one user wrote on Twitter.

“I can’t log onto my email via webmail,” another said.

“I get error code 503.”

A third person added: “Ironically the last email I got was to inform me that my bill was increasing.

“Shortly followed by this message. Higher bill. Worse service. Appalling.”

For updates check back on this page or visit TalkTalk’s service status page .

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Amazon.com Inc on Thursday said its operating profit could fall to zero in the current quarter as savings from layoffs do not make up for the financial impact of consumers and cloud customers clamping down on spending.

And even while Amazon’s holiday revenue beat Wall Street’s expectations, the company expects sales growth in its long lucrative cloud to slow for the next few quarters, its chief financial officer told reporters.

Shares fell 2 percent in after-hours trade, after they had gained 7 percent before the market’s close Thursday.

Facing high inflation and an uncertain economy, Amazon has aimed to slash costs across its vast array of businesses.

Last month, the online retailer said more than 18,000 employees particularly in its commerce and human resources divisions would lose their jobs. It booked a $640 million severance charge in the fourth quarter, CFO Brian Olsavsky told reporters.

Amazon likewise has scaled back or shut down entire services like its virtual primary care offering for employers. It took another $720 million charge from closing or impairing assets of some grocery stores, among other items, despite Amazon’s long-running bet on supermarkets for revenue growth.

Despite aggressive cost-cutting, Amazon forecast it would earn between $0 and $4 billion in operating income this quarter, compared with $3.7 billion in the same period a year prior and $4.04 billion that analysts were expecting, according to research firm FactSet.

Olsavsky attributed this to sales growth easing in the cloud as Amazon works with budget-conscious businesses to reduce their costs, as well as brands pouring money into Amazon ads more slowly now that the holiday shopping season is over.

Retail demand is another factor.

“We remain nervous as everyone else is about the consumer spending and… how people will prioritize their budgets moving forward,” he said.

Value shopping

An October sale to encourage early holiday shopping on Amazon has helped with retail revenue, to a point.

The company’s total net sales were $149.20 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with analysts’ expectations of $145.42 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

Consumer spending, however, shifted more to value brands in some categories and a greater percentage of sales in home essentials, Olsavsky said.

Demand in Europe and the United Kingdom was also hurt by high inflation and the Ukraine war, lowering growth rates there, he said.

Amazon has sought new revenue in the meanwhile. The company plans to charge certain grocery delivery fees for U.S. Prime members, on top of recent price hikes to join the loyalty program; it has created an add-on generic-drug subscription to attract business as well.

Still, its outlook is particularly tied to the fortunes of its cloud-computing division.

Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at Insider Intelligence, called slower growth in cloud and ads “a drag on profits going forward.”

Tech industry executives, including at rival Microsoft Corp have said economic uncertainty has prompted enterprises to rethink how much they’re willing to spend on cloud.

While AWS is helping customers navigate such terrain, it still has a healthy deal flow and future commitments from customers, making the company optimistic, Olsavsky said.

But for now, the division fell short of estimates of more than $22 billion in fourth-quarter cloud sales. They increased 20% to $21.4 billion.

Amazon has announced it will cut another 9,000 jobs in the next few weeks.

The reductions will be made to the company’s cloud services, advertising and Twitch units, and follows the 18,000 job cuts the business announced in January .

In a message to staff, CEO Andy Jassy said “uncertain economic conditions” were behind the decision.

In the memo, Mr Jassy wrote: “As we’ve just concluded the second phase of our operating plan this past week, I’m writing to share that we intend to eliminate about 9,000 more positions in the next few weeks – mostly in AWS, PXT, Advertising, and Twitch.

“This was a difficult decision, but one that we think is best for the company long term.

“To those ultimately impacted by these reductions, I want to thank you for the work you have done on behalf of customers and the company.

Read more: Apple, Amazon and Google offer gloomy outlooks Amazon warehouse staff escalate strike action

“It’s never easy to say goodbye to our team-mates, and you will be missed.”

Amazon also revealed separate plans to shut three UK warehouses and seven delivery stations in January, affecting more than 1,200 further jobs.

It comes following a series of job cuts across the Big Tech industry.

Last week, Facebook -parent Meta Platforms said it would cut 10,000 jobs this year, following a first wave of layoffs in Autumn last year, where the tech firm cut 11,000 jobs.

In January, Alphabet, the parent company of Google , announced 12,000 workers would be made redundant globally.

Listen and subscribe to The Ian King Business Podcast here

Recession fears have hit both corporate and consumer spending globally, leading to the likes of Apple, Alphabet and Amazon all signalling a tough recovery from the highs of 2021.

After exploding in popularity during the pandemic and hiring some additional 800,000 workers, Mr Jassy has tried to sharply reduce spending, cutting non-essential business arms and slowing hiring, after Amazon’s share price fell by nearly 50% last year.

The drop wiped about £678bn from the company’s market valuation.

Alex Kreger, UX Strategist & Founder of the financial UX design agency UXDA, increases banking and fintech products’ value in 36 countries.

In just two months after its launch, GPT-3-powered ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users, becoming the fastest-growing app in history, according to a UBS report ( via Reuters ). ChatGPT is a language model that uses natural language processing and artificial intelligence (AI) machine learning techniques to understand and generate human-like responses to user queries.

I compare GPT’s appearance with the launch of the internet in terms of its impact on the future of humanity. It enables machines to understand and generate language interactions in a revolutionary way. GPT (generative pre-trained transformer) AI could disrupt how we engage with technology much like the internet did.

It’s only been about two months since the launch (as of the time of this writing), but we can already see how much ChatGPT impacts our experience. The internet is full of examples of crazy prompts to which ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) often provide accurate and competent answers. People are rapidly adopting ChatGPT and similar models for uses such as content creation, programming, teaching, sales, education and so on.

The main question for me, as a financial UX strategist and founder of a company with services including conversational banking, is how such technology will impact the banking and financial customer experience: because customer experience is key to business success in the digital age.

According to a North Highland survey ( via Consulting.us ), 87% of leaders surveyed perceived CX as a top growth engine. Emplify research found that 86% of consumers would leave a brand they were previously loyal to if they had just two or three bad customer service experiences. An Accenture study from 2018 found that 91% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that recognize, recall and provide relevant offers and recommendations.

To secure a primary competitive advantage, the customer experience should be contextual, personalized and tailored. And this is where I think AI will become the breakthrough technology that supports this goal. According to a survey from The Economist Intelligence Unit , 77% of bankers believe that the ability to unlock the value of AI will be the difference between the success or failure of banks. In a 2021 McKinsey survey , 56% of respondents report AI usage in at least one function of their organizations.

I forecast that LLMs and AI will impact the user experience in the banking industry in multiple ways.

First, they can analyze customer data to understand their preferences and needs and use this information to provide personalized customer service and support to users by addressing their queries and concerns in real-time. Banks could also use AI models to provide customized financial advice, targeted product recommendations, proactive fraud detection and short support wait times. AI can guide customers through onboarding, verifying their identity, setting up accounts and providing guidance on available products.

Second, AI can automate many routine tasks, such as account balance inquiries and password resets, freeing customer service representatives up to focus on complex issues. It could increase efficiency and reduce costs for banks while providing faster and more accurate customer support. And all of this would be available 24/7, making it easy for customers to get help by answering questions, resolving issues and providing financial education outside of regular business hours.

Third, companies could leverage AI to provide a conversational banking experience by integrating models with banking applications to provide a single point of contact for users to make transactions, view account information and receive alerts through the chat or voice interface in multiple languages. It could simplify the user experience and reduce the complexity of banking operations, making it easier for even nonnative speakers to use banking and financial services worldwide.

So, what are the obvious use cases for AI and LLMs in banking?

1. Account Inquiries

Banking users can employ chatbots to monitor their account balances, transaction history and other account-related information.

2. Money Transfers

Users could potentially make fund transfers to other accounts or to pay merchants through a chatbot.

3. Loan Applications

Banks can deploy chatbots to assist users in applying for loans and to guide them through the application procedure.

4. Credit Score Monitoring

Companies can develop chatbots to assist users in checking their credit ratings and provide advice on how to improve them.

5. Financial Advice

Banks could train chatbots to provide investment information and assist users in making informed investment decisions.

6. Fraud Prevention

Banks could explore ways to use AI to prevent fraud by monitoring user transactions and spotting unusual activity.

7. Customer Service

Banks could train chatbots to provide rapid and effective customer care by answering common questions and fixing simple issues.

8. Account Management

Banks could train AI models to assist users in managing their accounts by arranging automatic payments, changing personal information and more.

9. Insurance Claims

Banks could also create chatbots with the capability to submit insurance claims and get information about the claims procedure.

10. Financial Planning

Chatbots could assist users with financial planning tasks, such as budgeting and setting financial objectives.

Challenges And Considerations For Banks

Despite the inspiring prospects that AI technology opens up for improving the customer experience in banking, implementing it into banking products can pose some challenges. One of the main challenges is safeguarding the security and privacy of customer data. Banks should ensure that their chat interface is secure and that sensitive data is protected from unauthorized access or disclosure.

Another challenge is training an AI model to understand the language and terminology specific to the banking industry. Banks should provide relevant training data and integrate the model with their existing systems to ensure that it can provide accurate and appropriate responses to user queries.

And one more challenge is customer adoption. Banks should ensure that customers are aware of the chat interface and its benefits and that they are comfortable using it. This will require them to make additional product UX design considerations and invest in education efforts to provide an easy-to-use chat interface.

Natural language-processing capabilities and an understanding of customer data mean AI could become an excellent solution to provide a more personalized, efficient and convenient user experience in banking and financial services.

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