'We believe that these tools have the potential to transform the way our employees work'
The OCBC Bank in Singapore has announced that it will introduce a generative AI chatbot that can be used by its 30,000 employees from across 19 countries in November.
The bank said the chatbot, named the OCBC ChatGPT, will assist employees in writing, research, and ideation to further boost their productivity.
With the move, OCBC becomes the first Singaporean bank to roll out a generative AI chatbot to employees globally.
"We are excited to be one of the first banks in the world to deploy generative AI tools at scale," said Donald MacDonald, OCBC's Head of Group Data Office, in a statement
"We believe that these tools have the potential to transform the way our employees work by automating a wide range of time-consuming tasks, freeing up their time to focus on more strategic and value-added work."
Security concerns
The chatbot was developed following the bank's collaboration with Microsoft's Azure OpenAI, and will be powered by ChatGPT's Large Language Models.
This comes amid security concerns surround ChatGPT across the world, with employers including Amazon, Verizon, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, and Accenture prohibiting the use of it in the workplace due to various concerns.
South Korean tech giant Samsung also previously imposed a temporary restriction on using ChatGPT in the workplace after employees mistakenly encoded confidential sources on the tool, leading to information leakage.
OCBC, however, assured that its chatbot is hosted in a "secure and controlled environment."
"Information entered by OCBC staff is kept within the Bank and will not be availed to Microsoft or any external parties," OCBC said in its announcement.
OCBC's AI use
The deployment of the OCBC Chatbot follows its successful six-month trial between April and September 2023 that involved about 1,000 staff, according to the bank.
The trial participants, who come from multiple functions, said they were able to accomplish tasks about 50% faster than before.
Uses of the generative AI chatbot spanned from writing investment research reports, translating content to multiple languages, to drafting customer responses.
This is not the first time that OCBC invested in AI to boost productivity. The bank said it's using AI for anti-money laundering efforts and personalising recommendations to customers in its mobile banking app.
So far, four million decisions are made by AI in the bank daily in processes such as risk management, customer service, and sales. The bank is predicting it would increase to 10 million by 2025.
