Non-AI companies are making their own bots – Morning Brew
To protect sensitive corporate data, business giants have largely tried to bar their employees from using widely accessible chatbots.
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• less than 3 min read
Titans of industry are doing the AI equivalent of setting up their own wi-fi to avoid connecting to public networks.
To protect sensitive corporate data, business giants have largely tried to restrict their employees from using widely accessible chatbots like ChatGPT for job-related queries—especially if they’re seeking AI-generated help on confidential client work.
Instead, companies are internally developing legions of in-house bots:
In consulting, the Big Three are full-sending custom AI. At McKinsey, for example, three-quarters of the firm’s 40,000 global employees use its internal AI platform, Lilli, every month for junior-level tasks, like research and making PowerPoint slides. Kate Smaje, who leads McKinsey’s AI efforts, said this automation doesn’t “necessarily” translate to fewer human workers, but McKinsey has laid off about 5,000 employees since a few months after Lilli’s launch in 2023.
In banking, Morgan Stanley said it saved coders approximately 280,000 hours already this year after launching AI tools that can translate legacy coding into modern computer languages and standards. At Goldman Sachs, employees can generate 95% of an IPO prospectus, a document that aims to persuade new clients, in minutes using AI, CEO David Solomon said in January. That type of work used to take a team of six people more than two weeks to complete.
In retail, Walmart said it shortened its production timeline for clothes and accessories from six months to six- to eight weeks using its new AI tool called Trend-to-Product, which quickly creates mood boards from internet trends. Within the past year, Target and Amazon have both launched custom chatbots for their employees to use instead of ChatGPT.
Better make sure it’s secure: UnitedHealth Group’s Optum healthcare company got caught with its digital pants down in December, when TechCrunch reported that its internal AI chatbot, which employees asked for advice in determining claims, was publicly accessible. Optum quickly restricted the tool and said it was a demo that was “never scaled nor used in any real way.”—ML
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