MondayFounder

JPMorgan Chase is on the brink of revolutionizing the investment landscape with its groundbreaking software service, taking advantage of an innovative form of artificial intelligence to cater to its customers’ investment needs. In an intriguing development, the New York-based bank has recently submitted a trademark application for a product named IndexGPT, as revealed by CNBC.

IndexGPT, as described in the filing, harnesses the potential of “cloud computing software using artificial intelligence” to analyze and handpick securities tailored to the unique requirements of individual customers. This move by JPMorgan comes on the heels of the resounding success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology, which set the stage for a remarkable shift in the realm of artificial intelligence. ChatGPT, renowned for its ability to generate remarkably human-like responses to inquiries using extensive language models, has prompted a fierce competition among technology giants and chip manufacturers, each vying to be at the forefront of this paradigm-shifting innovation.

Unsurprisingly, the realm of finance offers a multitude of prospects for this cutting-edge technology. Leading banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have already initiated trials of ChatGPT, exploring various internal applications. These encompass aiding Goldman’s engineers in coding tasks and providing financial advisors at Morgan Stanley with prompt and accurate responses to their inquiries.

However, JPMorgan appears to be setting a new precedent by aiming to directly introduce a GPT-like product to its customer base, potentially making it the first incumbent financial institution to do so. According to Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney based in Washington D.C., this filing strongly suggests that JPMorgan has concrete plans to launch a product in the near future. Gerben affirms, “Companies like JPMorgan don’t just file trademarks for the fun of it.” He further highlights that the filing includes a sworn statement from a corporate officer, attesting to their intent of utilizing this trademark.

To secure the trademark rights, JPMorgan must successfully launch IndexGPT within approximately three years of receiving approval—a process that usually takes close to a year due to the extensive backlog at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, as Gerben explains. Trademark applications are typically worded broadly to afford companies the widest possible protection. Nevertheless, JPMorgan’s filing explicitly mentions the utilization of the same flavor of artificial intelligence popularized by ChatGPT, employing “Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) models” to power their AI-driven IndexGPT.

Gerben wryly notes that this development appears to be an AI program intended to supplant traditional financial advisors. He remarks, “This sounds to me like they’re trying to put my financial advisor out of business.” JPMorgan, however, has chosen not to comment on this matter at present.

For quite some time, financial advisors have grappled with concerns surrounding the rise of technology capable of potentially displacing their roles in the market. Yet, thus far, their fears have largely remained unrealized. While wealth management firms such as Morgan Stanley and Bank of America’s Merrill have offered roboadvisor services, their human advisors continue to attract substantial assets, amassing billions of dollars.

During JPMorgan’s annual investor conference, the bank’s executives recently highlighted their significant progress in implementing AI throughout their operations. Lori Beer, the global tech chief at JPMorgan, emphasized that the company, with its team of 1,500 data scientists and machine-learning engineers, is actively exploring multiple use cases for GPT technology. Beer expressed, “We couldn’t discuss AI without mentioning GPT and large language models. We’ve recognized the power and opportunity of these tools and are committed to exploring all the ways they can deliver value for the firm.”

With JPMorgan Chase’s relentless pursuit of innovation and their foray into the realm of AI-powered investment.