Copyright Bloomberg
Bank of America Corp. first launched its artificial-intelligence driven chatbot, Erica, nearly a decade ago in 2016. Several iterations and a wealth of patents later, the platform handles about 2 million customer interactions each day, the equivalent of what 11,000 employees could do. If that sounds impressive, the flipside is the cost: the company has spent nearly $120 billion on technology over roughly the same period, and last year’s $12 billion tech budget included $4 billion for development, including improving Erica and building new apps, on top of the $8 billion required to maintain existing systems. These are huge sums and investors in many big banks have long asked what returns they’re getting for this cash. It’s good that some answers are starting to emerge — but they’re somewhat limited and there are two important warnings in this story.
