Mobile Payments Conference to Feature AI Workshop

The upcoming 2017 Mobile Payments Conference—set to be held August 28 – 30 at Chicago’s Swissotel—will feature quite a few speakers and exhibitions in the field of mobile payments. One workshop, however, may catch a little more attention. Staged by management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, the workshop will focus on artificial intelligence (AI) in mobile payments.

The workshop will provide a complete, “end-to-end examination” of AI’s overall impact on the mobile payments market, as well as in banking operations. While AI itself has become something of a buzzword in the market, it’s clearly got a lot of potential when it comes to offering users more in services.

Thus McKinsey will run this half-day session on how to use AI to not only add value to the mobile payments and banking process, but also drive growth in these sectors. They’ll be considering AI itself in depth as well, exploring how it can be effectively applied to the wider market and how it relates to other technologies in the field.

The potential for AI in mobile payment and banking systems is enormous, and has the potential to fundamentally alter the landscape as we know it. An AI system can be used like a particularly skilled chatbot, answering simple questions from users and learning as it goes. It can be used as a recommendation engine, and if it’s connected to mobile payment systems, it can analyze a user’s history and make suggestions based on previous purchases.

Of course, it can also surreptitiously send that information on elsewhere, and it can also put a lot of people out of work who were formerly paid to answer those questions. The use of AI can make our lives better or plunge us all into post-economy barbarism as no one can find paying work thanks to the rise of the machines.

The judicious use of AI, therefore, is a vital path to pursue. With competitors likely to bring this technology into play before long, having some level of AI operation will be table stakes before too much longer. A note of restraint is called for, however, and the upcoming workshop at the Mobile Payments Conference will hopefully provide more insight on how much restraint to exercise.