Global financial services consulting and technology services provider Synechron has announced that nearly 60 financial institutions are set to implement artificial intelligence technology following the launch of Synechron’s AI accelerators in March – with interest spanning across four continents, new figures show.

The firm is working with 57 financial institutions based in Europe, the US, Middle East, and Asia to help them adopt AI technology. Of those, 28% of the firms are based in Europe with UK-headquartered institutions accounting for approximately half, 45%, of the interest in Europe while 25% of the interest comes from US-based firms and another 23% of interest is worldwide.

Of the AI disciplines in which the firms are investing, 30% are focused on robotic process automation, and another 30% is focused on chatbots. A further 26% involve natural language processing or natural language generation. Robo-advisors and data science each bring in a further four leads, respectively.

Most of the interest from the UK, 54%, is centered on RPA while 43% of US firms and 30% of firms based on the European continent are interested in adopting natural language processing or natural language generation technology. What’s more, half of the interest from Dubai/UAE and a further 38% of interest from mainland Europe are focused on Chatbots.

Of the proof-of-concepts and pilots involving meaningful steps toward production, most are of quick turnarounds of 12 weeks or fewer, which shows the level of commitment of financial services firms to technology that they ultimately believe will benefit their business model and processes.

Synechron’s 14 reusable applications – Accelerators –allow financial institutions to reduce time-to-market when applying AI to enhance business operations, reduce operating costs and create better client experiences. The Accelerators use techniques like natural language processing, chatbots, RPA, cognitive machine learning, data science, and robo-advisors to address the business challenges most commonly affecting financial institutions today.

Additionally demonstrating the success of these initiatives, Synechron, alongside Sqreem Technologies in Singapore, was recently honored the Audience Choice Award at Citi’s Integrity Challenge Demo Day in Singapore. The winning partnership between Synechron and Sqreem Technologies leverages AI technology to couple structured and unstructured data to provide an early warning system for anomalous behaviors that might hint at financial crime.

Faisal Husain, Synechron co-founder and CEO, said: “The financial sector understands the value of innovation and there is a real ambition to implement artificial intelligence around the world, especially in Europe and the US. This global interest reiterates the importance many are placing on new technologies to help them solve complex business challenges. Artificial intelligence allows businesses to deploy processes that augment the role of individuals, allowing them to fulfill their potential and increase their value to the business.