Japan's third largest bank embraces AIGC Mizuho: AI will completely change the world!

**Source: **Financial Association

Edit Bian Chun

Image source: Generated by Unbounded AI

This week, Mizuho Financial Group Inc. gave all of its Japanese bank employees access to Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service, making it one of the first financial firms in Japan to adopt generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology. .

Toshitake Ushiwatari, general manager of digital planning at Japan’s third-largest lender, said ** the bank will allow 45,000 employees at its core lending unit in Japan to test the service**. Even before the software was installed, the bank’s managers and rank-and-file employees had submitted dozens of ways to leverage generative AI techniques.

Ushiwatari said in an interview that many employees have embraced ChatGPT in their private lives.

“It’s like stabbing a hornet’s nest,” Ushiwatari said, referring to the enthusiastic response to the company’s move to push generative AI to employees. “They think it’s going to revolutionize the world and lead to disruptive innovation.”

Ushiwatari’s team plans to hold a so-called “idea marathon” inside Japanese companies as early as next month, and is brainstorming ways to encourage employees to try the technology. The tool will be introduced to its brokerage unit in Japan next month, he said.

Japanese financial institutions actively embrace generative AI

While Mizuho is embracing generative AI, some big banks in the world are cautious about this emerging technology.

Some banks (including JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup) have restricted employees from using ChatGPT, even though they use AI for business purposes, such as scanning the portfolios of high-net-worth clients and screening potential defaulters.

**In contrast, Japanese financial companies have a more tolerant attitude towards ChatGPT. **

In addition to Mizuho Financial Group, two other Japanese financial groups are also joining the army of generative AI. MUFG plans to start using chatbots this summer for tasks such as drafting application approval documents and responding to internal inquiries, aiming to improve work efficiency by saving employees time and energy on tedious text work.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group announced in April this year that the group has begun testing an artificial intelligence chatbot developed in cooperation with Microsoft Japan. The group also plans to roll out the tool to all Sumitomo Mitsui Banking employees around this fall.

Banks cannot avoid generative AI

Ushiwatari has a rare background as a career banker. He attended one of Japan’s most prestigious polytechnics, Tokyo Institute of Technology, because he wanted to become a rocket scientist. But he later changed his career aspirations and joined today’s Mizuho Bank, where he stayed for nearly 30 years.

He said he was well aware of the risks of generative AI and that the bank introduced guidelines on information management, intellectual property and ethics as it rolled out the technology to staff.

However, in Ushiwatari’s view, generative AI will change society, and banks cannot avoid. “This is something we have to do, otherwise, we will fall behind,” he said.