The Company Has Announced a Major Push to Help Employees Develop “AI Fluency”
S&P Global, a prominent ratings and analytics company, has announced a collaboration with consulting firm Accenture to equip its workforce with skills in generative artificial intelligence. Beginning this month, all 35,000 S&P Global employees will participate in a “comprehensive gen AI learning program,” as jointly announced by the two firms on Tuesday. This initiative will utilize curated content from Accenture LearnVantage, a technology learning and training platform, to help employees develop “AI fluency.” The training boot camp is part of S&P Global’s strategy to address the increasing importance of AI in the financial services sector and to equip its staff with the necessary tools to leverage generative AI.
“AI is for everyone, and at S&P Global, we want to empower our people and our customers to adopt, build and innovate with gen AI,” said Bhavesh Dayalji, S&P Global’s chief AI officer. “Gen AI will continue to transform the financial services industry, enhancing our day-to-day work and our customer interactions. “We are partnering with Accenture to ensure that our people and our customers are not only prepared for the gen AI transformation, but are ready to lead it,” he said.
The partnership between S&P Global and Accenture also extends to AI development and benchmarking across the financial services industry. This collaboration combines Accenture’s Foundation Model Services, which assist companies in managing and scaling large language models (LLMs), with S&P AI Benchmarks by Kensho, which evaluates the performance of LLMs for financial and quantitative applications.
LLMs, a type of AI trained to understand and generate original content, have been a focus within the financial services industry. A forthcoming study from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business suggests that these models can outperform some financial analysts in predicting future earnings directions.
The expanding capabilities of AI have drawn significant attention in the financial services industry in recent years. Banks and other financial institutions are increasingly hiring AI talent, deploying AI-powered tools and assistants, and adopting numerous new use cases across their operations. For example, Bank of America plans to invest $4 billion this year in developing new technologies, including AI. Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase, a leader in AI among major banks, employs over 2,000 AI and machine learning experts and data scientists and has implemented more than 400 AI use cases. Mary Erdoes, head of JPMorgan’s asset and wealth management division, stated at the bank’s investor day in May that every new hire will receive AI training.
S&P Global’s collaboration with Accenture aims to “enable banks, insurers, and capital markets firms to strengthen the performance and efficacy of their solutions while ensuring that responsible AI is built into every use.”
