A super new team member…?

A super new team member…?

I was intrigued to read in Wednesday’s AFR that a supercomputer has joined ANZ’s wealth management team.

Back in 2011 on the US game show Jeopardy, “Watson” – a question answering computer system built by IBM – managed to easily beat two of the show’s greatest champions. Having thus established its credentials, a version of Watson will now field customer enquiries in ANZ’s wealth management division.

With the ability to process the informational equivalent of a million books per second, and a capacity to learn from its mistakes, Watson offers a formidable capability that will only improve from here.

At Montgomery, we are big fans of using computers to make our work more efficient, but perhaps we should think about how we will respond when the machines start to apply for Australian Financial Services Licences, and want to set up their own funds management boutiques.

Just in case we find ourselves on the losing side in future, let me put this on the record: I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords!

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Tim joined Montgomery in July 2012 and is a senior member of the investment team. Prior to this, Tim was an Executive Director in the corporate advisory division of Gresham Partners, where he worked for 17 years. Tim focuses on quant investing and market-neutral strategies.

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