A closer look at how AI can transform Investment Banking

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A few weeks ago we sat with Fifty Years and OpenAI to explore the way they’ve changed Venture Capital (VC) in this webinar. In it, Peregrine Badger, Instigator at Fifty Years and Adam Perelman, Engineering Manager of ChatGPT at OpenAI, dove into how innovative tech has changed VC workflows. 

Read key takeaways from their discussion here.

But it's not just VC; AI is making big waves in Investment Banking (IB) too. 

Deloitte has estimated that AI will improve IB activity by an average of 34% within the next three years. The consulting firm claims that generative AI (e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard) can boost front-office productivity for the top 14 global investment firms by as much as 27%–35%. Increased productivity can also lead to increased earnings, with the same study forecasting additional revenue of “US$3.5 million per front-office employee by 2026.”

The potential for high returns has made firms across the globe race to incorporate AI into their workflows. For IB, this means making certain processes more efficient, like: 

  • Due diligence: Screening, risk assessment
  • Data management and analysis: Opportunity assessment, market and industry insights
  • Relationship management: Outreach, client support 

This can result in three major improvements:

  • More accurate assessments on if an opportunity’s finances are in order and they meet a firm’s investment criteria 
  • Accelerated due diligence and outreach because teams are equipped with the right information
  • Saved time and money through task automation, freeing up dealmakers so they can focus and act on high-value tasks

Read on to learn more on how top financial services firms use AI to streamline their processes, and those of their clients. 

Making decisions quickly and efficiently: Predicting market trends and investment risks 

Since the announcement of their LOXM AI algorithm in 2017, JPMorgan Chase has been at the forefront of the AI conversation in financial services, with more than 300 AI use cases in production for risk, prospecting, marketing, customer experience, and fraud prevention.

“We currently have over 1,000 people involved in data management, more than 900 data scientists (AI and machine learning (ML) experts who create new models) and 600 ML engineers (who write the code to put models in production),” said Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase in a CNBC article

The heightened focus on AI and ML at the firm has made data analysis and research easier than ever before. Tech like LOXM are able to monitor and analyze huge swaths of data to glean valuable insights. 

Analyzing data at scale has been a challenge teams of all sizes have faced. 

Humans can spend hours, or even days, combing through data and still miss out on granular insights, like a business’s financial performance. However, when AI is added into the fold, information and insights from different sources are compiled quickly. This shifts a team’s focus to activities with impacts, like reaching out to the right opportunities and supporting their customer base.  

For firms like Woodside Capital Partners, the speed at which AI-driven insights have been delivered has given their team a cutting edge. 

Woodside's Founding and Managing Partner, Dr. Rudy Burger said: “Having immediate access to information about performance and providing insights to clients on crucial business activity is exactly the competitive advantage we need.”

Unlocking a firm’s relationship ecosystem and nurturing key relationships 

It’s no secret that the most powerful tool in an investment banker’s kit is their personal network. 

AI can take their networks a step even further by improving relationship management to uncover new opportunities, nurture relationships, and engage with key decision makers—something that many deal teams struggle with as they work across multiple platforms. 

“Your deal work happens everywhere but your CRM,” said Chad Harding, Managing Partner at PEAK Technology Partners. “It’s where you record your information and where it’s available, but work involving deals and opportunities are in your inbox, on websites, and in your meetings.”

This is where relationship intelligence can help. Relationship intelligence combines AI and machine learning to surface insights into a firm’s shared network, business relationships, and client interactions so teams can find, manage, and close more deals. 

“In the pandemic, we only [had] so many ways to engage prospects digitally,” Michael Lamm, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Corporate Advisory Solutions, said. “We had to shift to doing more research and due diligence for higher quality deals, and having access to more contacts made all the difference.” 

This is especially important during the initial stages of engaging with an opportunity. When a client approaches your firm, they want to know that you have access to potential buyers. 

Relationship intelligence scores your connections, enabling you to swiftly offer clients a curated list of contacts you've interacted with in the past, and the strength of that relationship. 

“Our clients want to know that we have key access to decision-makers,” said IEG Investment Banking Group’s Managing Director Mirko Helde. He added that relationship intelligence software like Affinity has made this task easier than ever before. “It’s about being honest and truthful—that is what matters to clients."

Affinity for Salesforce 

Affinity for Salesforce gives deal teams up-to-date intelligence about their entire firm’s network and relationships. 

By automatically updating Salesforce records with information from your inbox, calendar, and Salesforce activity, you’ll have access to the full history of engagement your firm has had with a prospect or customers so you have all of the information you need to move a deal forward. Affinity also uncovers warm introduction paths to key contacts at target opportunities—which can help close a deal 25% faster. 

More than that, it makes all of these insights available from where you work—whether that’s in Salesforce, in a browser alongside the website of the firm being researched, or in your email as you write deal communications. Affinity for Salesforce combines and feeds these activities, along with other Salesforce data, to create comprehensive and actionable relationship insights for your accounts and contacts. 

Research, screen, and qualify deals faster with Affinity for Salesforce.

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Camille Nguyễn
Senior Content Marketing Strategist
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