Brief news
Morgan Stanley is introducing a new assistant called Debrief, which logs advisor sessions and automatically generates draft emails and summaries. The AI-powered assistant will be rolled out to its 15,000 advisors by early July, marking a significant step forward for generative AI at a Wall Street bank. Debrief brings AI directly into contact with advisors’ extensive customer connections, resulting in better quality and depth of notes. The implementation will test generative AI’s productivity improvements, which have boosted the stock market and chipmakers. Morgan Stanley’s wealth management division hosts 1 million Zoom calls annually. One adviser in the Debrief trial estimated that the programme saves 30 minutes every meeting, as advisors usually spend time preparing notes and action plans to satisfy client demands. The technology is expected to enhance Morgan Stanley’s assets under management and client and advisor retention. As of March, Morgan Stanley’s wealth management group had $5.5 trillion in customer assets and wanted $10 trillion.
Illustrated news
With a new assistant, Morgan Stanley is embracing AI to save financial advisors thousands of hours.
Bank executives told CNBC that Debrief, the assistant, logs advisor sessions and automatically generates draft emails and summaries. Morgan Stanley will roll out the programme to its 15,000 advisors by early July, marking a huge step forward for generative AI at a Wall Street bank.
The company previously created a ChatGPT-like service to help advisors navigate the firm’s vast research, but Debrief brings AI directly into contact with advisors’ most valuable resource: their extensive customer connections.
Jeff McMillan, Morgan Stanley’s head of firmwide artificial intelligence, says the programme, built using OpenAI’s GPT-4, sits in on client Zoom sessions and takes notes instead of advisers or junior workers.
“What we’re finding is that the quality and depth of the notes are just significantly better,” McMillan told CNBC. “The truth is, this takes notes better than humans.”
Consent required
Every time Debrief is utilised, clients must consent to recording. McMillan said future versions will let advisors utilise company devices during in-person sessions.
The implementation will test generative AI’s productivity improvements, which rocked Wall Street in recent months and boosted chipmakers, IT giants, and the U.S. stock market.
Morgan Stanley said CNBC its wealth management division hosts 1 million Zoom calls annually. One Morgan Stanley adviser in the Debrief trial estimated that the programme saves 30 minutes every meeting, as advisors usually spend time preparing notes and action plans to satisfy client demands.
“As a financial adviser I’m doing four, five or six meetings a day,” said Houston-based advisor Don Whitehead, who tested the programme. “Having the note-taking service built in through AI, you can really be invested in the meeting, you’re actually a lot more present.”
What advisors accomplish with hours saved from menial job is unknown. McMillan called Morgan Stanley’s generative AI programmes a “grand experiment in productivity.”
If McMillan and others are right and advisers spend more time serving clients and scouting for new ones, the technology should enhance Morgan Stanley’s assets under management and client and advisor retention.
As of March, Morgan Stanley’s wealth management group had $5.5 trillion in customer assets and wanted $10 trillion.
McMillan said it will take a year to see if the technology boosts advisor productivity.
McMillan added, “I’m the analytics guy, but the advisors will tell you that they’re at their best when they’re engaging” with customers. “No one will say they like taking notes or reading research reports, right? That’s not why they started this business.”
The bigger picture
In February, Morgan Stanley wealth management chief Jed Finn told investors that Morgan Stanley’s AI goal is a layer of technology that effortlessly lets advisers issue proposals, balance portfolios, and provide reports with simple prompts.
McMillan noted that Morgan Stanley’s trading and banking departments share essential activities including processing contracts and opening accounts.
Financial occupations are most susceptible to AI displacement, according to a Citigroup analysis. Citigroup estimated that AI may increase industry profits by $170 billion by 2028.
McMillan noted that business models will likely alter in unpredictable ways while the process is young.
I suppose there will be disturbance in some locations, he said. “We look back on all the things we think we’ll lose, but we don’t see ahead.”
McMillan said millions of prompt engineers will teach AI to achieve desirable company outcomes; Morgan Stanley took months to fine-tune Debrief prompts.
McMillan even suggested his teenage children become prompt engineers.
“They’ll learn how to talk to machines, tell them what to do, and collaborate with people,” he said. The game is different from how we’ve been working.
Source : CNBC News
