Mizuho Financial Group announced the provision of access to Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service to all employees of its banks in Japan.
As a result of this decision, the bank holding company becomes one of the first representatives of the Japanese financial industry to introduce the technology of generative artificial intelligence, which has the potential to transformational influence on the processes in this area.
Toshitake Ushiwatari, general manager of the digital planning department of the third largest financial institution existing in the Japanese banking sector, said that generative AI will be able to test by 45 thousand employees of the main credit departments. Also, according to him, managers and ordinary workers already offer dozens of options for using the new generation technology even before installing the software.
Toshiatke Ushiwatari stated that many employees of the bank have accepted changes in the space of their lives resulting from the use of advanced technological solutions. He noted that the introduction of generative artificial intelligence caused rave reviews in the financial institution. According to him, in this case, the effect from the point of view of the response is comparable to the situation when the hive was stirred up. He also said that the bank’s employees believe that innovative technological solutions can become a force that will change the world.
The events in Mizuho take place against the background of how Wall Street found itself facing an objective and, with maximum probability, irreversible penetration of artificial intelligence into almost all dimensions and planes of human civilization. The consequences of this process will have a fundamental impact.
Some financial institutions are cautiously and not without misgivings entering a new technological era, and some of them are delaying this historic transition. For example, global banks have restricted their employees’ access to ChatGPT. This happened in a situation where the same workers use artificial intelligence to analyze portfolios of wealthy clients and identify consumers who do not comply with payment deadlines. Japanese financial institutions in this context are more technocrats and treat innovative solutions as natural tools of the new age.
Toshiatke Ushiwatari’s team is planning to hold a so-called ideaton in Japan next month, an event that is a large-scale and intensive brainstorming. Also, this group of specialists is currently developing ways to motivate employees of a financial institution to experiment with new-generation technologies.
At the moment, one of the main tasks for the bank in the context of the use of generative artificial intelligence is the use of AI systems that can create new images, audio and video materials, and texts by analyzing large amounts of data. With the entire volume of information generated by technology, the financial institution plans to make a kind of reference point for the base of internal rules, processes, and other guidelines.
Toshiatke Ushiwatari has a very rare experience for a banker with a long-term career. He graduated from one of the most prestigious scientific schools in Japan and the Tokyo Institute of Technology, wanting to work in the field of rocket science, but at some point, his life aspirations changed dramatically, as a result of which a career at Mizuho began, which has been going on for almost 30 years.
Toshiatke Ushiwatari stated that he understands all the risks associated with AI, and noted that the bank introduces the principles of application of a new generation of technology that relate to aspects such as information management, ethics, and intellectual property. According to him, generative artificial intelligence is what will lift society, and the bank should not ignore the new technological realities.
