"AI projects in the bank I work for are failing massively. Everyone is overworked as a result"
I work in the data team of a major bank. I have a very senior role and we support the business across multiple functions. It is a mess.
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Like most banks, we have been through a major reorganization. Costs have been dramatically cut in the expectation that savings will be made when AI automates tasks. But that isn't happening, and actual people are increasingly overworked as a result.
I have colleagues in support functions who are regularly working until 10pm at night, simply because there is so much to do. 30% of their team was cut earlier this year, but the tasks are exactly the same. They are supporting front line teams, and they're burned out and exhausted.
It's madness. I know more job cuts are planned for next year. But there's already no one to do the work.
Senior management seem to imagine that AI will take over everything, but it can't. These are specialist tasks supporting people dealing with major clients. They cannot be trusted to an LLM. I am closely involved with a lot of our AI projects and many are failing massively. We have launched multiple AI projects and been forced to retract them because the solutions they created were not reliable.
There are some things that Large Language Models are good for. For example, you can use ChatGPT to rewrite emails. But if you want to use AI to create a sales proposal or to build a credit report, it becomes problematic and humans are almost always better.
Senior management do not want to hear this. The C-suite has become a propaganda machine. They insist that AI solutions are ok and because they say so, it must be true. But none of the senior people have the slightest idea how AI works. They've all overcommitted to it, and now they cannot change track.
People on the ground are suffering. Those who can are finding new jobs. Those who can't are being buried in a barrage of work, and it is only going to get worse.
Harry Nolan is a pseudonym
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