How Your Firm can Leverage ChatGPT and Generative AI

ChatGPT and other large language model (LLM) generative AI tools are delivering powerful new AI capabilities to organizations as an easily accessible platform. But along with these newly available capabilities come enhanced risks for organizations if they don’t sufficiently manage ChatGPT to weed out the errors and other well-documented problems that plague the new platform.

Financial firms can’t afford to ignore the potential of ChatGPT to revolutionize operations. But guardrails need to be applied to use the technology safely. Let’s examine how the right MSP can ensure organizations make the most out of ChatGPT without the drawbacks that can pose a risk to operations, security and compliance.

ChatGPT’s Potential… and Pitfalls

The introduction of ChatGPT last November was the tipping point that put generative AI newly on the map for many organizations. This program is just one kind of generative AI implementation – specifically, a language model that trains on vast text data to generate human-like responses to user prompts – but the platform’s potential enterprise applications are inspiring companies in a variety of sectors to pursue ChatGPT use cases.

However, along with the potential payoff comes significant pitfalls, including ChatGPT’s penchant for distorting information, conveying offensive content or even “hallucinating” entirely made up facts. Among the most well-publicized examples is the unfortunate case of an attorney who was sanctioned after using ChatGPT to generate a legal filing submitted in court – a document that turned out to be replete with errors and totally fabricated case law.

For financial organizations in particular, the impacts of such ChatGPT mishaps can be severe. Recent research uncovered significant ethical challenges for using ChatGPT in finance – including “outcomes contaminated with biases, incorporation of fake information in financial decisions, privacy and security concerns, lack of transparency in the decision-making process and accountability of financial services.” These issues can cause significant and often irreversible damage – such as when a private equity firm uses flawed research in choosing to invest in a company, or a hedge fund executes a faulty trade that can’t be undone.

How to Use Generative AI Responsibly

Fortunately, the right MSP partner can help leverage ChatGPT and related platforms in a responsible way that minimizes the drawbacks. At ECI, our engine for generative AI quality assurance was developed by seasoned technologists and DARPA veterans and is part of our Governance and Enablement services. We put the right guardrails in place that enable clients to use ChatGPT in a secure and compliant manner that unlocks value while limiting the risk.

These protections and guardrails will strengthen how a firm makes use of ChatGPT. To begin with, we can verify the answers generated by the system are correct. ECI’s deep domain expertise in financial sector practices and compliance makes us the perfect partner to validate that the answers and recommendations coming out of a generative AI platform accurately reflect financial and regulatory conditions in the real world.

In addition, ECI can help optimize how users ask questions of ChatGPT to ensure more relevant and accurate answers. For instance, pasting too much information into a query can lead to more skewed and irrelevant answers. To improve accuracy, we help firms perfect their queries when using ChatGPT for tasks like pulling historical financial data, asking for details about a trade or researching a regulatory filing.

Ultimately, ECI can help guard against the significant security risks that come with ChatGPT. The platform is increasingly targeted by threat actors who research the platform’s code repositories and then inject malware into the system. The right MSP knows what to look for and can proactively scan for the threats and vulnerabilities most commonly associated with ChatGPT. We even monitor usage patterns and behaviors within a company to guard against insider risk scenarios – such as when a disgruntled employee asks ChatGPT to generate ransomware to unleash on internal systems.

Learn more about these and other ways ECI is helping optimize ChatGPT and generative AI for financial enterprises. Contact our team today.