Is That a Robot at My Desk? How to Survive on Wall St

Robots have arrived on Wall Street, and humans need to learn how to work with them. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is rolling out virtual assistants to maintain help desks, track errors and route inquiries. A Bank of America corporate client made a $1.6 billion payment by mobile phone. AllianceBernstein Holding LP’s robot, Abbie, can gather 4 million data points a day and execute bond trades directly with counterparty bots. U.S. banks could axe an estimated 200,000 jobs over the next decade with bank branch, call center and corporate employees bearing the brunt of those cuts as lenders automate back-office functions, according to Wells Fargo & Co. But all hope is not lost.

Artificial intelligence, a branch of computer science that aims to imbue machines with aspects of reasoning. Today, the term includes machine learning, which is the ability for computers to learn by ingesting data, and natural language processing, the ability to read or produce text. What’s known as robotic process automation is a simpler form of AI that performs rote tasks like answering administrative requests.