The financial services firm cut analyst data preparation time by 83% with the use of an onboarding agent, the companies said.
Northern Trust expanded its longstanding partnership with Microsoft to build the client onboarding agent, a move that comes as financial services firms navigate deploying advanced AI while maintaining security, privacy and governance controls.
Accelerated AI use is prompting a heightened focus on governance and responsible AI use among financial institutions, according to an Evident report published last month. More than two-thirds of global financial firms surveyed by Evident for the report said they have added controls for AI systems.
Northern Trust’s client onboarding agent combines “advanced AI with enterprise-grade privacy, security and governance to make the process faster for clients,” Northern Trust CEO Michael O’Grady said last month during the financial services firm’s third-quarter earnings call.
Human oversight has been embedded throughout the agent’s workflow, letting analysts evaluate the tool’s reasoning and review outputs, according to the Monday announcement.
“This approach points to a broader opportunity across regulated industries to transform complex workflows and deliver business value without compromising trust,” Bill Borden, corporate vice president of worldwide financial services at Microsoft, said in the announcement.
Alongside its client onboarding agent, Northern Trust has adopted client action plan agents, which O’Grady said save customer relationship managers two to three hours per client memo. AI-enabled digitization has also nearly doubled straight-through processing, or automated financial transactions, for the company. Internally, the bank’s AI assistant Byron supports wealth managers with more tailored insights to deliver to clients, he added.
Source link







