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Artificial intelligence is moving from science fiction to practical reality fast, and it's in banks' best interest to gear up now for the changes ahead. Here are some strategies to consider.

Already some AI pioneers have emerged in the financial industry just over the past year: Bank of New York Mellon's use of robotic process automation in trade settlement and other back-office operations; Nasdaq's search for signs of market tampering with an assist from AI; UBS' initiative to answer basic customer-service questions through Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa; and USAA's development of its own virtual assistant.

Australia's ANZ Group has been using IBM's Watson in its wealth management division for three years. Watson can read and understand unstructured data found in contracts and other documents, comb through millions of data points in seconds, and learn how to draw conclusions from the data. It can assess a new customer's financial situation more quickly and comprehensively than a human being, and it never forgets anything. (https://www.americanbanker.com/news/anz-turns-to-ibms-watson-to-customize-wealthy-client-services)

AI has the potential to fundamentally transform banks’ finance function within the next decade – if not sooner.