- JPMorgan Chase is developing software services like ChatGPT that rely on disruptive artificial intelligence to select investments for clients, CNBC has learned.
- The company filed a trademark for a product called IndexGPT earlier this month, according to filings from the New York-based bank.
- “This is an AI program for selecting financial instruments,” said trademark attorney Josh Garben. “This sounds to me like they are trying to put my financial advisor out of business.”
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon plans to visit mainland China for the first time in four years as US banks prepare to host three conferences in Shanghai at the end of May. there is
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JPMorgan Chase is developing software services like ChatGPT that rely on disruptive artificial intelligence to select investments for clients, CNBC has learned.
The company filed a trademark for a product called IndexGPT earlier this month, according to filings from the New York-based bank.
According to the filing, IndexGPT will utilize “artificial intelligence-powered cloud computing software” for “analysis and selection of securities tailored to customer needs.”
The viral success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology last year forced the entire industry to grapple with the advent of artificial intelligence. ChatGPT, which uses a large language model to create human-like responses to questions, has sparked an arms race between tech giants and chip makers over what is seen as the next fundamental innovation.
This technology has a wide range of potential applications in the financial sector. Banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have already begun testing it for internal use. This includes helping Goldman engineers write code and answer questions for Morgan Stanley financial advisors.
But JP Morgan may become the first financial giant looking to release a product like GPT directly to customers, according to Josh Garben, a Washington, D.C.-based trademark attorney.
“This really shows that they may have a potential product to launch in the near future,” Garben said.
“Companies like JPMorgan aren’t filing trademarks just for fun,” he said. The application contains “a statement of oath by an executive officer that substantially states, ‘Yes, I intend to use this trademark.'”
The lawyer said JP Morgan would need to launch IndexGPT within about three years of approval to secure the trademark. It usually takes nearly a year for a trademark to be approved, he said, because of backlogs in the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Garben said applications are usually written in vague terms to provide the broadest possible protection for businesses.
However, JP Morgan’s filing clearly states that IndexGPT uses the same kind of AI popularized by ChatGPT. The bank plans to use AI powered by a Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) model.
“This is an AI program that selects financial securities,” Garben said. “This sounds to me like they are trying to put my financial advisor out of business.”
JP Morgan declined to comment for this article.
Financial advisers have long feared the emergence of technology superior enough to replace their role in the market. Those concerns have yet to materialize.
Wealth management firms such as Morgan Stanley and Bank of America’s Merrill offer simple robo-advisor services, but that hasn’t stopped human advisers from amassing billions more.
Earlier this week, JPMorgan executives touted progress in applying AI across its operations at the company’s annual investor conference.
The bank, which employs 1,500 data scientists and machine learning engineers, is testing “many use cases” for its GPT technology, said global technology chief Lori Beale.
“You can’t talk about AI without mentioning GPT and large language models,” said Beal. “We recognize the power and opportunity of these tools and are committed to exploring all the ways they bring value to our company.”
