Bloomberg has started to unroll its first big project leveraging Generative AI.

The feature leverages a large language model to auto generate a summary that appears on top of selected stories on the professional terminal. 

Check out the accompanying photo to see a screen shot a client shared with me of a story about Syria to see how it is displayed. The generative AI bullets are above the story.

The application has been turned on for a small number of clients and will likely be extended gradually. Bloomberg tends to roll out features slowly to ensure there are no glitches.

The decision to release the feature – coming two years after ChatGPT was unveiled – is a reminder of how cautious the big players in fintech have been to incorporate Gen AI. 

By contrast, startups have been quick to adopt the technology in part because they are willing to take more risks and experiment with more innovative applications. 

Bloomberg has reduced the threat of hallucinations that would lead to complaints by starting with summarization and limiting the scope to one document.

Reducing the risks, however, also limits the potential benefits. 

The bigger unlock investment banks and research analysts are looking for is to digest and analyze large sets of documents over many years. They also want the ability to proactively ask specific questions, not just see pre-set bullets. 

Imagine, for example, being able to browse conference call transcripts about JPMorgan and asking: “How has Jamie Dimon changed his stance on crypto over the past decade?”

Nevertheless, it’s a big deal and undoubtedly the sign of more to come. 

One client told me that it is a reminder of the utility of bullet point summaries. 

That trend started decades ago with financial analysis from StreetAccount and Fly-on-the-Wall. Bloomberg itself followed around 2010 with its First Word service. 

Now we see bullet-point summaries at the top news articles by Axios and Business Insider as well as most Wall Street research. They even appear in the results of AI models like Perplexity. 

I’m sure Bloomberg will monitor how the addition of AI generated bullet pointed summaries will change – if at all – readership. Will clients be less likely to scroll through the entire piece? Does that matter?

The integration of generative AI has taken awhile but it’s a sign big fintech firms on the Street are committed to a slow-but-steady approach to get it right.