DWF's Mark Qualter says that ML technology can be far quicker

DWF's Mark Qualter says that ML technology can be far quicker than using humans to do the same job

The banking sector is also embracing ML. UK building society Nationwide had asked US computer giant IBM to build an artificial 

intelligence "chatbot" called Arti for it, to help first-time buyers understand how to get a mortgage.

But when the UK went into its first lockdown in March, and mortgage holidays were announced, the lender was instead inundated with queries about them.

In just four days, Arti - powered by AI platform IBM Watson - was retrained to answer mortgage holiday questions. The virtual agent also dealt with other questions as Nationwide saw online banking registrations jump by 89%.

"In just over two months, Arti had responded to more than 10,000 queries, and a further 350 per day since, freeing up hundreds of hours for frontline teams to focus their time handling more complex requests from members," says Michael Conway, UK lead for artificial intelligence at IBM Services.

"Put simply, it allowed Nationwide to focus its resources on those who needed the most help, without ignoring the needs of everyone else."