Karen Quinn, Senior Director, Brand and Corporate Communications, Finastra.
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Generative AI (GenAI) offers the financial services industry a broad array of potential use cases, from streamlining and personalizing customer interactions to generating forecasts, automating administrative tasks and giving employees back precious time for more rewarding activities.
A recent survey my organization conducted, interviewing nearly 1,000 financial services senior professionals globally, showed a great appetite to explore the potential of GenAI: 83% of respondents said that their institution was interested in the technology.
As financial services organizations move ahead on their GenAI journey, I provide four simple steps when considering the launch of new products and reflect on what needs to happen before, and in parallel, for success.
Get your house in order first.
Long before launching any GenAI product, an organization needs to have a clear commitment and road map to introducing the technology and skills journey internally. A broad steering committee should be formed, comprising representation across all areas of your business, from HR all the way to product development.
These planning discussions aim to clearly articulate the organization’s rationale for adopting GenAI and establish a concrete budget, KPIs and objectives. A project of this magnitude should be treated like an organizational transformation project rather than a technical development; in an earlier article, I offered advice to communications leaders about how best to spearhead the technology in order to lead effective programs.
Onboard your key stakeholders—employees.
Given the prevalence of "human vs. AI" headlines, some employees may feel anxious about GenAI, and that’s understandable. As humans, we never want to feel replaceable by technology, so it is important to be clear about your goals and communicate the benefits it will bring to your organization and your people.
GenAI may expedite software product cycles or consume vast amounts of data to produce reports, but this frees up time for your teams to be creative and imaginative. Time is often cited as the most precious commodity in many organizations, so the offer of giving time back to pursue more human, creative endeavors will likely be well-received.
This step cannot be overlooked. To start incorporating GenAI in your customer-facing solutions, your employees must be familiar with and bought-in to your GenAI journey. They will be the ones building, implementing, servicing or selling your products. Providing generalist and technical skills training and secure, compliant development environments are as critical to your success as communication and messaging. Don’t be tempted to rush these important stages or roll them out before your message is concrete.
Follow the basic principles.
Now you’ve rolled out your GenAI road map and program internally, it’s time to turn to product development. One of the most common mistakes organizations make is creating products that aren’t solving a problem or improving a service. When faced with the excitement of transformational technologies, it’s tempting to consider all of the incredible things you could do with GenAI. To succeed, you must start with the customer pain point you want to solve.
This consideration is the very first step in phase one of our in-house engagement road map for our product and development teams working with GenAI—"identify the problem." Adhere to the most essential design thinking principles. This phase includes defining the use case, personas and research models, and it concludes with a legal review. When you are working in emerging technologies in a heavily regulated industry, such as financial services, the legal team will become your new best friend.
Once approved, phase two includes onboarding into a secure developer zone, developing a prototype, validation and creating necessary documentation. Phase three is the proof phase, setting the scope and validating the model before moving to production (phase four) and the ongoing documentation, measurement and monitoring.
Each phase requires specific communication with various internal groups. As ideas and concepts become more concrete, this is when you should start working with wider teams—marketing, sales, PR, customer functions and other front-facing staff—and stakeholders.
Communicate not just to excite, but to explain.
You can now collaborate on how you position and communicate your product. Of course, it would be remiss to downplay the element of GenAI when it is such a hot topic, particularly if you are in an industry that values innovation. Just don’t prioritize innovation over function; first and foremost, address the question, “How will this improve the customer experience?” Reflect on the questions or fears that you faced with your internal rollout and consider that your external audiences may have similar apprehensions that your communication could allay.
When we launched our first GenAI-enabled product feature, which was to automate the very manual process of creating borrower notes required for mortgage applications, we strived to be exceptionally clear about the benefits to our customers (mortgage professionals), theirs (borrowers) and those interested in security aspects.
• We included the benefits to our customers (e.g., "automates the creation of borrower narratives (notes), streamlines processes, saving time and minimizing errors for brokers, provides more time to manage new opportunities, and funds deals faster").
• We outlined the benefits to their customers (e.g., "gets sent for underwriting much faster and offers a more tailored and personalized experience, resulting in improved consumer experience").
• We ensured the security and compliance message was clear (e.g., "the auto-compose functionality has a secure private model at the core, which stands out from other systems built around public models").
This way, the benefits to all parties are very clear, and GenAI becomes the enabler of these improved financial services processes, not the spotlight of the announcement.
In Summary
It goes without saying that any external communication should always be grounded in consistent messaging and facts. But particularly when talking about emerging technologies, it’s more important than ever to place the focus on the benefits rather than the technology itself.
The financial services industry has only begun to scratch the surface when it comes to exploring GenAI and, as communicators, we have an exciting opportunity to provide the framework that allows our organizations to effectively and clearly communicate the road ahead.
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