Is AI About To Change Your Bank Forever? Mat Britton on Schwab Network

And we're joined now by Matt Britton of AI and consumer trends expert and the author of Generative Generation AI. So Matt, thank you so much for being here today. I can't wait to get more on your insights on what is the most important space right now. It feels like to the entire market, so specific to banking, which of course is, is really our world here. I mean, what are we seeing right now as AI plays out?

Well, I mean, banking is obviously a big topic on the consumer side. Obviously AI has incredible ab analytical rigor. So let's just say you need a consumer finance app. What AI has the ability to do is analyze your spending and give you benchmarking against people who are maybe at your similar income level or your similar age. Maybe if you're 22 years old, you're spending a little bit too much money on pizza. AI will let you know about that. So obviously when you're looking at more commercial banking and you're looking at investment banking, it's really going to change the game. I mean, if you think about the concept of a wealth manager, a wealth manager essentially taking time to talking to analysts, doing research and essentially giving you feedback on your portfolio. And many would say right now that AI platforms like ChatGPT and Claude can do that just as good, if not better as traditional wealth managers. So as you go down the line of financial services and banking, there's really no sector or no part of that entire ecosystem that is not going to be completely disrupted by AI.

Yeah, and I think that that's so fascinating. Especially I'm like, hey, I need AI help with my personal banking. But also I, I think the removal of that human element is actually somewhat of a good thing when it comes to banking because it feels more objective, less like there's this emotion behind it. So I think that's so interesting.

And we say we're all, we're all like with emotional and rational beings, right? So if you are trying to give somebody investment advice and you drive by a billboard or your daughter says, oh, this sneaker brand is doing incredible, you're going to be predispositioned to recommend maybe that stock to, to your, to your client from an investment standpoint, but maybe the fundamentals really aren't there. I doesn't have that experience, so it's not going to be jaded. It's far more rational, which obviously has drawbacks in other areas of business. But if you're talking about money, it's dollars and cents. It's ultimately about math. Right. It's sort of a binary game. Either you make money or you don't. And that's where I think can be incredibly powerful.

I could not agree more. And I think it's going to be a really interesting time to live through as we see this all develop. And also we were looking at cybersecurity earlier in our show, but risk and some of this risk management, walk us through what that looks like with AI and its entry into banking.

Yeah, I mean, cybersecurity is just at the top of everyone's list right now. You know, the ability for bad actors for nefarious purposes to deploy AI, for tactics like deepfakes or to hack passwords, or even you think about the notion that somebody can call their mother with the voice of who is their child and ask them to wire them $100,000 because they're in a pinch. All those things can and will happen. The hope is with risk prevention and cybersecurity, that as good as AI is empowering the bad guys, it also is an incredibly powerful tool at empowering the good guys and to be able to detect risk and get ahead of it. But it's going to be a cat and mouse game. With the evolution and rate of change of AI, we are really in unprecedented territory. So it's going to be up to every to really stay on the bleeding edge of this so they can make sure, A, they can take advantage of opportunities, but B, they can obviously have a good risk prevention plan in place yet.

It's been so encouraging to see companies recommit a lot of their attention to AI. It feels like this earnings period has been across the board volatile, but everyone still seems set on spending big on AI. And when you look at the broader right now business space, including and excluding banking, we talked about some of that, that human element that could be a good thing to be removed. But then there's also areas where there could be some concerns. So broader business speaking here, what else are you seeing?

So, I mean, there's been sort of a progression. At first I became really hot. But you had the lawyers and data security and privacy executives, organizations kind of putting the brakes on it. But then with the overwhelming demand from Wall street In regards to AI investments, CFOs and CEOs said, okay, game on, we're going to start to spend. And now slow, but surely those investments are trickling down throughout the organization, throughout the marketing organization, the sales organization, its operations, et cetera. However, there's a big reskilling that needs to take place because just because you have an enterprise License with Google, Gemini or OpenAI doesn't mean that you're an AI first company. It's the people within the organization that still need to get their arms around how to deploy this powerful technology to drive disruption from within and to reinvent their business. And that's going to take some time and it's not going to be evenly distributed. There's some companies we're seeing already that are really diving in, but most companies, as somebody who works with the majority of Fortune 500 companies right now, I can tell you firsthand, are really dragging their feet. And it's not because leadership wants it to be embraced. It's because the skill sets really don't exist within these organizations to know what to do with AI.

Okay, so really quick, before we let you go, I am curious if you have a favorite company or name right now that you feel is, is really front running a lot of this, this AI and development.

Well, I think that so much has been made about Google and the threats that it faces obviously with traditional search. And we did see about a month ago a report came out that searches on the iPhone using Google drop for the first time in 22 years. That report's been somewhat substantiated, somewhat substantiated depending upon who you deal with. But I believe over time Google's brand, their distribution power, their ability to tap into so many different data sources, Whether it be YouTube, whether it be somebody's Gmail account, or all the different assets that they bring to bear, is going to give them a differentiated competitive advantage in this space. I know Google's face some pressure as of late, but I'm long on Google in the AI space because I think you just recently saw with their recent IO conference, just a flurry of innovation that's coming out of their company. One thing I would take a look at is VO3, which is a text to video platform where not only through a prompt we'll create video, but it will also create video of people talking. And you know, you take a look at that and you know, you can't help but think what that means for the future of Hollywood. But I'm definitely long on Google as a name that pops out to me.

I know there's been so much scrutiny over at search business recently, but as someone that uses the Google search probably 75 times a day, the advancements with AI within search is amazing. I mean like, like life changing. So that just goes to show in real time how it's already affecting our lives for the better. But so appreciate it. I have to leave it there. Really great conversation. Matt Britton, AI and consumer trend expert, as well as the author of Generation.