OpenAI has launched a secret project to train its artificial intelligence models on complex financial tasks, according to Bloomberg quotea medium that claims to have had access to internal documents. As the media shares, the company led by Sam Altman has recruited more than 100 former employees of large investment banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to teach its AI to build financial models, one of the most time-consuming jobs for junior analysts.
Project Mercury. As pointed out by documents to which the media has had access, this initiative pays $150 per hour to these contractors to write instructions and develop financial models of different types, which can range from corporate restructuring to IPOs. Sources Bloomberg assures that participants also have early access to AI that is being trained specifically to replace these types of financial tasks.
A selection process almost automated. As well as detail From sources close to the company, candidates go through a 20-minute initial interview with an AI chatbot, followed by tests on financial statements and a final modeling assessment. Once in the program, contractors are expected to submit one model per week, prepared in Excel following industry standards, from margins to percentage format.
Another way for OpenAI to become profitable. Although OpenAI recently reached a valuation of $500 billionthe startup still has not been able to be profitable. And the company is burning money to invest in all kinds of projects, while large data centers are built with excessive consumption of energy and water. And all this while the subscription of your users It is one of the few ways through which the company obtains direct income, something that currently does not pay off. Mercury can enable its AI to penetrate a key sector such as consulting and finance, while providing a new avenue for income.
Investment banking. Just like point In the middle, banking analysts usually work more than 80 hours a week, especially when it comes to managing active operations, building detailed models in Excel for all types of tasks. For this reason, allowing them to choose a reliable language model for their tasks could save them a lot of time.
The same old dilemma. According to some experts to whom he has had access the Fortune mediumconsider that a transformation is more likely than a direct elimination of employment. “I’m not convinced we’ll get rid of junior workers anytime soon, but I could imagine a world where the skill set we need them to have is different,” explains to the medium Shawn DuBravac, economist and CEO of Avrio Institute.
The first wave of automation in banking. DuBravac esteem that in the next year firms will try to automate between 60% and 70% of the time that analysts currently spend on routine tasks such as cleaning data, formatting spreadsheets and building basic models. However, according to a McKinsey survey published in March, only 38% of organizations using AI predict that generative models will have little effect on their workforce size in the next three years.
AI in banks. OpenAI already has important links with the financial sector. In fact, Morgan Stanley uses its technology in its wealth management division, and Altman’s company recently obtained a line of credit of 4 billion dollars from JPMorgan Chase, among other examples. What is also interesting is that JPMorgan itself is actively working on becoming the first “completely AI-powered megabank” of the world.
Cover image | OpenAI and Lo Lo
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