IBM Consulting launched its Center of Excellence for generative AI last month, where clients, including financial institutions, can look to consultants for expertise, use cases, risk mitigation and advancements in the technology.

“As part of our Generative AI CoE, we have developed industry-specific generative AI accelerators to rapidly scale AI across the enterprise in domains like customer care, finance, marketing, operations and supply chain,” Shobhit Varshney, vice president and senior partner of AI analytics Internet of Things at IBM Consulting, told Bank Automation News.

The Center of Excellence (CoE) has more than 1,000 consultants with generative AI expertise to help IBM clients understand how to use AI within their operations, according to an IBM release.

“Business leaders are cautiously experimenting with generative AI and trying to balance massive value creation and mitigating risks associated with generative AI,” Varshney said. “They are looking for partners with hands-on experience with scaling generative AI in an enterprise and blending it seamlessly with traditional AI to deliver business value.”

Access to resources

Through IBM’s CoE, clients have access to more than 50 domain-specific machine learning accelerators, Varshney told BAN, noting that these accelerators “can bring faster time-to-value for [client] transformation projects.”

Clients will be able to discuss questions and concerns, look through use cases and determine how to pursue AI within their businesses, he said.

For example, clients will work within the CoE to develop AI strategies based on “running a foundation model hackathon, jump-starting the use of foundation models with proven use cases, designing and implementing prototypes and business solutions, setting up organization and technical governance, and creating bespoke foundation modes using innovations from IBM Research,” he said.

Finance implications

IBM is already working with banks on generative AI, Varshney said.

One large global bank client is using it to reduce thousands of hours of internal audit functions while another is using the technology to improve its conversational AI capabilities, he said, without disclosing bank client names.

IBM’s Senior Vice President of Software and Chief Commercial Officer Rob Thomas said at the Bank of America 2023 Global Technology Conference last week that as generative AI advances, it “is going to play out more in open source than for any one company or one model. … So, consulting basically has no limitations on what we can do.”

IBM bank clients include Bank of America, Citi and Deutsche Bank.

“There is incredible opportunity for banks and financial services institutions to take advantage of AI,” Varshney told BAN.