During the pandemic, there has been more emphasis than ever on "low-hanging fruit" AI applications and use-cases. Fraud detection is one of these use-cases. There will be an uptick in financial crimes as happens during economic crises. This week, we speak with H.P. Bunaes, General Manager of Financial Services at Datarobot, which focuses on AutoML. H.P. speaks with us about how fraudulent payments often happen and can go undetected, as well as how AI could play a role in detecting them. He also discusses how to deploy AI applications for fraud detection in financial services. To learn about how we map the ROI of AI in financial services, watch our short 2-minute video on our AI Opportunity Landscape research at emerj.com/fs1.

The coronavirus is dominating the news, and we figured it was important to cover it as it relates to AI in financial services. This week, we discuss what chatbot adoption will like look during and after the pandemic. Our guest is Nat Cartwright with Finn AI. She speaks about viable use-cases for AI in customer service and where she thinks those priorities will become more important as we start to pull out of this economic moment we see ourselves in. We also put together a report on AI priorities as they relate to coronavirus, the AI Business Continuity Action Plan, and we're giving it away free with the first month of Emerj Plus at emerj.com/ap1.

One of my favorite presentations last year was one I gave at an event called PayThink in California. I came to learn that there are more events about payments than almost any other topic in financial services. This week, we interview the CEO of Deserve, Kalpesh Kapadia, about the future of payments. He discusses which aspects of how we pay for things will be different and explains how AI plays a role in payment fraud. For more on the applications of AI in financial services, be sure to download our AI in Financial Services Cheat Sheet at emerj.com/fin1.

We are changing the name of our podcast to AI in Financial Services. In this episode, Dan explains why and discusses how the show will address the coronavirus pandemic and how it affects innovation in financial services. 

While a lot of people are excited about customer-facing applications in financial services, right now, the ROI of AI comes down to fraud detection and compliance use-cases. That's what this episode is about. We interview Hani Hagras, Chief Science Officer of Temenos. Hani speaks with us about the present and future of AI for compliance, including where banks can reduce risk and how AI could help. If you're interested in how we track AI ROI across different industries, you can learn more about our AI Opportunity Landscape service at emerj.com/fs1.

When it comes to adopting AI applications, the team lessons are almost always better understood by the vendors than by the banks. This week, we speak with Sasha Caskey, CTO of Kasisto. He speaks with us about what he's learned from working with teams that get it right and teams that don't. He also provides a particularly interesting insight about the importance of having "nurturing" data scientists. If you haven't downloaded our Beginning With AI Guide, it includes some of our best takeaways about how to get started with AI from dozens of interviews over the last few months. You can download it at emerj.com/beg1.

Our guest this week, Madhu, works at one of the top 10 Australian banks. He has a lot of experience applying AI in customer service. Madhu speaks about how to grow an AI team, when to hire data scientists, when to hire someone to lead those data scientists, and what kinds of talent needs to be there to help guide data scientists.  If you're interested in learning more about our AI Opportunity Landscape work in the financial services industry, watch our video at emerj.com/fs1.

Our focus this month on AI in Banking is on building a successful data science team. This week, we speak with Jan Veldsink, who heads up AI for compliance at Rabobank.   He discusses how to educate cross-functional AI teams, answering questions about how to get subject-matter experts and data scientists on the same page and how to measure the success of AI teams.   If you're interested in getting started with AI at your bank or financial institution, be sure to download our Beginning With AI PDF guide at emerj.com/beg1.

Almost any time we engage with financial institutions, chatbots are at least part of the conversation. There are not many credible chatbot companies that are focused explicitly in banking, but Kasisto is one of them. Our guest this week, Sasha Caskey, is CTO of Kasisto. Sasha talks about starting small with chatbots and reasonable expectations for them in banking. If you're interested in mapping the full landscape of AI applications in financial services, be sure to watch our AI Opportunity Landscape video at emerj.com/fs1.

Our guest this week, Paul Barba, heads up AI efforts at Lexalytics. I visited their headquarters as part of our AI in Montreal piece we released about 2 years back. Paul speaks with us about how NLP can layer value on top of conversational interfaces, as well as the limits of chatbots and NLP in finance. For more on what NLP can and can't do in business, be sure to download our 9-page guide, Unlocking the Value of NLP in Business, at emerj.com/nlp1.