Latest news with #ScottSolomon
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This bank is using AI versions of its analysts to meet clients' demand for videos
UBS is using AI to create avatar videos from analysts' notes. 36 analysts covering a range of sectors are taking part in the Swiss bank's initiative. UBS told Business Insider that clients have been seeking more video options. Banks are using AI to save their analysts' time while giving clients what they want. Bank of America uses "Banker Assist" to aggregate information to offer insights unique to each client, while Goldman Sachs has a "GS AI Assistant" that functions as an in-house ChatGPT for staff. Swiss bank UBS has gone further, using AI to generate avatars of analysts that explain their research to clients, and it's planning to do this more. The Swiss bank started using AI avatars of some analysts in January. About 36 UBS analysts, or 5% of its total, have volunteered to take part. They cover sectors including technology, consumer goods, and energy. UBS's use of AI avatars was first reported by The Financial Times. Using OpenAI and Synthesia tools, a script is generated in a matter of seconds that is then edited by staff. Scott Solomon, head of global research technology at UBS, told Business Insider that his team started creating videos of analysts a decade ago, but capacity restrictions meant they were capped at about 1,000 annually. Analysts were writing an average of two notes a week but would only go to the video studio once a quarter, he said. The new tools are "enabling somebody to use a capability in video that they weren't really able to use before," he said. It also gives clients another way to digest information and meet their rising demand for video, Solomon said. He compared an avatar to other parts of an analyst's toolkit. "When an analyst joins UBS, we give them Excel, we give them our authoring platform, we give them a CRM [customer relationship management] tool so they can talk to clients. I want them to have an avatar," he said. Solomon said the next step would be integrating the technology so that a video can eventually be created when an analyst publishes a note — without the need for editing. He said he hoped this would become possible by the end of the year. Even if the process was fully automated, UBS said analysts will still assess a video based on their notes before it is sent to clients. Solomon said that ideally, the avatars would eventually become part of the onboarding process, so that whenever a note is published, there's a video too. The next step would be integrating this capability directly into the authoring platform. "We have the script generator, we have the ability to send the script to generate the avatar, and then we obviously have the ability to deliver the avatar to clients," Solomon said. "We want to string all that together so that as they're writing the note, they can get the video with it as well. Our goal is absolutely not to do 50,000 videos a year, but clearly there's an opportunity to do more videos than we are today." Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Insider
23-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
This bank is using AI versions of its analysts to meet clients' demand for videos
Bank of America uses " Banker Assist" to aggregate information to offer insights unique to each client, while Goldman Sachs has a " GS AI Assistant" that functions as an in-house ChatGPT for staff. Swiss bank UBS has gone further, using AI to generate avatars of analysts that explain their research to clients, and it's planning to do this more. The Swiss bank started using AI avatars of some analysts in January. About 36 UBS analysts, or 5% of its total, have volunteered to take part. They cover sectors including technology, consumer goods, and energy. UBS's use of AI avatars was first reported by The Financial Times. Using OpenAI and Synthesia tools, a script is generated in a matter of seconds that is then edited by staff. Scott Solomon, head of global research technology at UBS, told Business Insider that his team started creating videos of analysts a decade ago, but capacity restrictions meant they were capped at about 1,000 annually. Analysts were writing an average of two notes a week but would only go to the video studio once a quarter, he said. The new tools are "enabling somebody to use a capability in video that they weren't really able to use before," he said. It also gives clients another way to digest information and meet their rising demand for video, Solomon said. He compared an avatar to other parts of an analyst's toolkit. "When an analyst joins UBS, we give them Excel, we give them our authoring platform, we give them a CRM [customer relationship management] tool so they can talk to clients. I want them to have an avatar," he said. Solomon said the next step would be integrating the technology so that a video can eventually be created when an analyst publishes a note — without the need for editing. He said he hoped this would become possible by the end of the year. Even if the process was fully automated, UBS said analysts will still assess a video based on their notes before it is sent to clients. Solomon said that ideally, the avatars would eventually become part of the onboarding process, so that whenever a note is published, there's a video too. The next step would be integrating this capability directly into the authoring platform. "We have the script generator, we have the ability to send the script to generate the avatar, and then we obviously have the ability to deliver the avatar to clients," Solomon said. "We want to string all that together so that as they're writing the note, they can get the video with it as well. Our goal is absolutely not to do 50,000 videos a year, but clearly there's an opportunity to do more videos than we are today."
Business Insider
23-05-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
This bank is using AI versions of its analysts to meet clients' demand for videos
Banks are using AI to save their analysts' time while giving clients what they want. Bank of America uses " Banker Assist" to aggregate information to offer insights unique to each client, while Goldman Sachs has a " GS AI Assistant" that functions as an in-house ChatGPT for staff. Swiss bank UBS has gone further, using AI to generate avatars of analysts that explain their research to clients, and it's planning to do this more. The Swiss bank started using AI avatars of some analysts in January. About 36 UBS analysts, or 5% of its total, have volunteered to take part. They cover sectors including technology, consumer goods, and energy. UBS's use of AI avatars was first reported by The Financial Times. Using OpenAI and Synthesia tools, a script is generated in a matter of seconds that is then edited by staff. Scott Solomon, head of global research technology at UBS, told Business Insider that his team started creating videos of analysts a decade ago, but capacity restrictions meant they were capped at about 1,000 annually. Analysts were writing an average of two notes a week but would only go to the video studio once a quarter, he said. The new tools are "enabling somebody to use a capability in video that they weren't really able to use before," he said. It also gives clients another way to digest information and meet their rising demand for video, Solomon said. He compared an avatar to other parts of an analyst's toolkit. "When an analyst joins UBS, we give them Excel, we give them our authoring platform, we give them a CRM [customer relationship management] tool so they can talk to clients. I want them to have an avatar," he said. Solomon said the next step would be integrating the technology so that a video can eventually be created when an analyst publishes a note — without the need for editing. He said he hoped this would become possible by the end of the year. Even if the process was fully automated, UBS said analysts will still assess a video based on their notes before it is sent to clients. Solomon said that ideally, the avatars would eventually become part of the onboarding process, so that whenever a note is published, there's a video too. The next step would be integrating this capability directly into the authoring platform. "We have the script generator, we have the ability to send the script to generate the avatar, and then we obviously have the ability to deliver the avatar to clients," Solomon said. "We want to string all that together so that as they're writing the note, they can get the video with it as well. Our goal is absolutely not to do 50,000 videos a year, but clearly there's an opportunity to do more videos than we are today."
Finextra
20-05-2025
- Business
- Finextra
UBS rolls out AI avatars of its analysts
Swiss bank UBS is using AI models to create video avatars of its analysts to share with clients. 0 Tapping models from OpenAI and Synthesia, UBS has already built virtual versions of around 35 of its 720 analysts, with plans for a wider deployment, according to the Financial Times. The analysts visit a studio where Synthesia captures their likeness and voices. Then, a language model reads the analyst's reports, generates a script, and turns it into a realistic AI-generated video. The avatars are being deployed to help save analysts time and in response to the rising popularity of short-form videos driven by the likes of TikTok. 'There are two drivers for it: the client driver and the efficiency is helping you scale your video capabilities in a way that clients are asking you for, and ultimately saving you time to do your research and meet with clients," says Scott Solomon, head, global research technology, UBS. Signing up for an avatar is optional for analysts, while Solomon concedes the technology is not yet perfect, struggling with some accents. However, the bank is looking to ramp up production and put out 5,000 videos a year. 'We publish about 50,000 documents a year, [but video production] has been fixed at about 1,000 a year, because that's basically our studio capacity. But the number of views on those videos has gone up dramatically,' Solomon tells the FT.
