Starting next month, 30,000 employees across Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) offices globally will be able to use an internal generative AI chatbot to assist them in writing, research and ideation.
Called OCBC GPT, the chatbot is powered by ChatGPT’s large language models. Users can type a query in natural language into OCBC GPT via Microsoft Teams, and the chatbot will produce answers based on accessible text-based information on the web.
To prevent any data leakage, the chatbot is hosted in a secure and controlled environment. Information entered by OCBC employees is also kept within the bank and is not accessible to any external parties, including Microsoft.
“We see this as an easy quick win because it democratises access to ChatGPT for employees but in a secure environment, where there is no risk of data leakage for the bank,” says Donald MacDonald, OCBC’s head of Group Data Office, at a media briefing earlier today.
This deployment follows a six-month trial earlier this year. About 1,000 OCBC employees across various functions including investment research, product management, and marketing were involved in the trial. They used OCBC GPT to write investment research reports, translate content into multiple languages, and draft customer responses among other use cases.
OCBC found that OCBC GPT enabled participants in the trial to complete their tasks in half the time than previously, on average. This includes the time taken to check the chatbot’s output to ensure factual accuracy.
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“We believe [generative AI] have the potential to transform the way our employees work by automating a wide range of time-consuming tasks, freeing up their time to focus on more strategic and value-added work. This in turn helps us provide better customer service by spending more time building relationships with customers and developing innovative products and services,” states MacDonald.
