Artificial intelligence is bypassing bank customers, study shows

Germany-based IT service management company Senacor has released a study stating that customers of German banks do not notice banks' use of artificial intelligence since institutes find it difficult to determine what consumers want.

The study was released in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Center for Security, Reliability and Trust of the University of Luxembourg and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology. It consisted of 22 qualitative interviews conducted with decision-makers at C-level, department heads, bank founders, fintechs and IT service providers. According to the study, banks use artificial intelligence (AI) to improve internal processes instead of for interacting with their customers. Users logging onto a bank's website do not notice whether artificial intelligence is at work or not. Institutes use AI to recognise patterns such as whether fraud is involved in a transfer, money is being laundered, or card payments are made at unusual locations.

The study reports that customers rarely interact with AI, although they would want an intelligent chatbot or voice assistant to help manage accounts or analyse sales. According to a representative of the University of Luxembourg, companies in the financial sector are too timid when it comes to AI, fearing that they will annoy their customers with false offers or by replacing face-to-face conversations with a chatbot. According to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), banks and companies generally miss up to 25% more profit by avoiding artificial intelligence. A survey by the Germany-based digital association Bitkom shows that German companies are currently hardly using AI, although 68% of respondents saw it as an opportunity rather than a danger.