A top Treasury Department official yesterday encouraged banks of all sizes to respond to a recent request for information on the use of artificial intelligence in financial services, saying the input the department receives will inform future policy and guidance.
Speaking during a panel discussion on AI at the ABA Risk and Compliance Conference in Seattle, Todd Conklin, chief AI officer at the Treasury Department, noted that the Financial Services Sector Coordinating Council in March released a list of recommendations for the industry on AI as part of a larger Treasury report on managing AI cybersecurity risks in the financial sector. That report was based on interviews with roughly 50 financial sector participants, and now the department wants to hear from a range of financial institutions, including smaller banks that may lack the infrastructure to develop AI tools.
“It’s so critical in the AI space that we hear about from the entire spectrum of the ecosystem, from our largest to especially our smallest institutions,” Conklin said. He also pointed to a recently announced public-private partnership between the council and ABA to combat AI-related fraud and cybersecurity threats to the financial system. “Please get involved with the ABA effort if you don’t want to submit your own [response], but we also encourage you all to submit your own responses,” he told bankers in the audience.
As far as the council recommendations, Conklin said the report emphasized that banks have one individual or party with the ability to drive AI topics across the organization. He also pointed out that the report dedicates several pages to managing third parties that provide AI solutions, with questions banks should be asking those vendors.
