McKinsey: How have European banks started to implement gen AI?
Gökhan Sari: Since we spoke last year, we’ve seen a tremendous effort to implement gen AI across most of our clients. Last year, it was more about, “Should we try it? Are we going to have hallucinations? What about the regulatory aspects?” But this year, it’s all about, “OK, it’s working in a few places, how can we scale this up? What are the implications for us, the customers, our employees, and other stakeholders?”
I think we’re seeing a humungous effort as people look at the implementation of AI in general, and gen AI as a subset of that. So it’s not only gen AI, but AI in general, of which gen AI is a very important driver. And we see this across the board with our European clients. Whether it’s in France, the UK, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, or elsewhere, we see the same appetite for experimenting, implementing, and scaling up gen AI capabilities.
McKinsey: What are some of the biggest challenges CEO’s face when implementing gen AI?
Gökhan Sari: To be honest, the most important challenge CEO’s face is the human element—it’s not just tech. So once they have these AI capabilities, CEOs are asking themselves, “How do I actually implement this? Is it going to be embedded in different business units? Is there going to be a center of excellence? How do the businesses, technology, and capabilities work together?”
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Secondly, if gen AI takes over some of the tasks humans perform today, CEOs worry about training the next generation of talent. That’s because most people actually learn on the job, so if some of the most basic elements of that job are done by gen AI, CEOs are asking, “How are people going to learn everything they need to know?” I think that’s the most critical question that CEOs face.
Thirdly, adopting AI is not easy, and it’s not cheap. So when you scale this up, you reach a point where you think about the cost of implementation, as well as technology bottlenecks. So CEOs are asking a lot of questions around whether they are really getting a benefit, and doing cost-benefit analyses to determine the right trade-off.
But, quite frankly, there’s also an element of not wanting to miss out on this opportunity. So on the one hand, you hear a lot of questions—but on the other, there is a lot of appetite to act, and act now.
McKinsey: What’s next for gen AI in the banking sector?
Gökhan Sari: We are seeing a lot of new capabilities emerging in the gen AI space as companies across the globe provide solutions for banks and other financial institutions. So clients are asking which solutions to adopt, and whether they should tie themselves to a third-party platform, or develop one themselves. That will be an important element.