Artificial Intelligence: The Ultimate Disrupter

We are at the dawn of driverless cars, and that means car ride services will soon replace many cars and their associated car loans. Lending services such as Rocket Mortgage, which says it can approve a mortgage loan in eight minutes, have forever changed consumer expectations on convenience and speed in the lending process. The rise of the importance of mobile platforms means any credit union that is behind that curve will lose members.

While all of these changes raise a very high bar for credit unions, they are nothing compared to the disruptive effect of artificial intelligence, which is coming soon. We already have robo-advisors for investment services and artificial intelligence has been shown to provide a more reliable medical diagnosis than doctors. If artificial intelligence can make a medical diagnosis, is there any job or profession that will be immune to some use of artificial intelligence, especially if the artificial intelligence can self-learn, such as IBM’s Watson? When artificial intelligence can seamlessly interact with people as another person would, gather and analyze data instantaneously, and provide highly customized advice and services to consumers, it will be a monumental game changer. Yes, I know Siri is lame, but her very bright big sister is just around the corner.