Market traders are already beginning to feel the pressures from a rapid onslaught of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, their prominent advances in the past year and an eventual replacement of their jobs by this type of technology.
According to a recent Goldman Sachs report, AI would endanger around 300 million jobs worldwide. The investment bank estimated that, in the United States, 46% of administrative jobs, 44% of workers in law firms and 37% of engineering jobs could be replaced by artificial intelligence.
But they are not the first to notice. In 2019, a Wells Fargo study warned that “robots” would eliminate some 200,000 jobs in the financial sector over the next 10 years, mainly affecting stock and bond traders.
In Chile, the sectors are already beginning to prepare for the imminent irruption of artificial intelligence. The Undersecretary of Science, Carolina Gainza, reported last Thursday that “we are working as a ministry to update the Artificial Intelligence policy that was presented in 2021.”
robotic consultancies
The truth is that these technologies have been operating for more than two decades in the financial sector. Within the local market, they can be found in the form of roboadvisors, an online platform that uses algorithms and technology to provide investment management services in an automated manner.
These “robotic advisors” perform different tasks, such as portfolio construction and instrument selection, diversification and risk management, automatic rebalancing, automated investments, position monitoring and tracking.
Despite its extensive capabilities and tasks, its main factor in its favor is its affordability. “These tools have gained popularity due to a number of benefits they offer compared to traditional investment management such as lower management costs, accessibility, standardization, scalability,” explained Damian Gelerstein, CEO of fintech solutions provider Abaqus.
Among the main roboadvisors in the country is SoyFocus, a fintech fund manager that recently launched its Savvy tool, “dedicated to answering basic questions about investment concepts to building a spreadsheet to organize your budget and spending,” they detailed.
“Savvy uses the latest in AI, works through WhatsApp and is able to answer questions in natural language,” said AGF co-founder Rafael Donoso.
Two large banks have already installed their robotic strategies: during 2022, Santander Asset Management launched its roboadvisor in Chile, while Scotia AGF released its robotic advisor to national investors in March 2023.
For its part, at Abaqus “we are already working on incorporating artificial intelligence into many of our products and developing some tools that use it as one of its main features,” said Gelerstein.
For Racional’s Head of Content, Ana Ruiz, AI “will bring improvements in the accuracy of investment recommendations even higher than existing mathematical models” for the roboadvisor model.
The still irreplaceable human component
However, for fintechs, human interaction would not yet see an end, but access to a new pool of tools would. “We are more likely to see an evolution towards hybrid models in which AI complements human abilities rather than completely replacing them,” Gelerstein reassured.
This since, for the CEO of Abaqus, investment advice is “a world of trust, especially in more sophisticated investors, so the human component of social interaction in the medium term will probably be very difficult to replace.”
Donoso agrees, who stressed that “the subsequent accompaniment process still needs people on the other side of the line.” “This is where we see more room for automation with tools supported by AI and the challenge is to build experiences that people love to use,” said the SoyFocus co-founder.
Thus, the human would be at the helm of “strategic decision-making in complex situations, understanding the economic and political context, customer relationship management, empathy and adaptation to unforeseen changes,” explained Ruiz. “Human experience and ethical judgment remain invaluable,” he said.
Meanwhile, rather than replace advisers, AI could democratize a service for which professionals charge high fees.
“It can help people of medium and small wealth who do not have access to personalized recommendations from specialists, and that is the majority of the population,” concluded Donoso.
