Morgan Stanley hired an expert in 'conversational AI'

As demand for old-fashioned sales talent dwindles, banks are hiring a new type of person to help interface with customers and clients: someone who can create chatbots. 

Morgan Stanley has recruited an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning expert to lead its chatbot team in New York City. Georg Huettenegger joined the bank's NY office as an executive director earlier this month. Huettenegger will head the rollout of chatbots across the U.S. bank.

Huettenegger's arrival follows Morgan Staney's announcement of a partnership with digital knowledge management platform Yext in December 2018 to help facilitate the rollout of chatbots at the bank. 

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Huettenegger was with the enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) provider IPsoft, the New York-based company known for its humanoid AI platform, Amelia.  He led the company's global cognitive architecture and voice team for three years.

 A Ph.D. in computer science from Technische Universitat Wien, he began his career as a software engineer in 1998. After a decade of working for technology firms, he joined UBS as a business and application architect in Switzerland in 2008.  Eighteen months later, he moved to Credit Suisse where he led the Americas Data & Integration Architecture team before moving to IPsoft in 2016.  the

Morgan Stanley isn't the only bank working on conversational AI. JPMorgan just promoted Mohamed M Khalifa to work on natural language processing and conversational AI initiatives in its investment bank.  Last November, DBS hired Yuliya Seregina as the head of conversational artificial intelligence for consumer banking from SAP, the German enterprise software giant. Bank of America also has Erika, its AI-based virtual assistant.

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