A March 2024 report from professional services firm KPMG found that of 200 US senior bank executives, 60% of financial services institutions have a GenAI-enabled cybersecurity solution in pilot or production phase, and that 65% of execs agreed that the technology is “an integral part of their institution’s long-term vision for driving innovation and ensuring the business remains relevant five years from now.”

Management consulting company PwC highlighted GenAI use cases for banks in its October 2024 study, including applications like streamlined loan processing, automated customer service, precise customer identification, and fraud detection.

As financial services orgs bring GenAI to the window, FS-ISAC outlined eight steps to help banks use the tech “effectively and cautiously” while data is selected, stored, and accessed.

“You have to be careful of what data it’s using and the output that it’s giving, especially if customers are inputting [personally identifiable information] or sensitive data into the model,” Michael Silverman, chief strategy and innovation officer at FS-ISAC, told IT Brew.

Steps provided by FS-ISAC, a member-driven non-profit supporting cybersecurity for the global financial sector, include taking a data-lineage inventory (Step #3); building effective test plans (Step #6); and staying up on model vulnerabilities (Step #7).

Silverman shared which of the FS-ISAC’s recommendations might be easiest for financial services pros to forget.

Read more here.—BH

Automakers are eager to implement AI features in cars—and not just behind the drivers’ wheel, according to Boston Consulting Group’s Global Leader of Cyber and Digital Risk Vanessa Lyon.

“It can be safe driving, of course,” Lyon told IT Brew. “And there has been AI and GenAI there for quite some time. But it’s also customer service, marketing, content generation.”

Lyon, who spoke with IT Brew after participating in a panel about AI in the automotive industry at CES 2025 in Las Vegas, argued AI is already impacting the automotive industry as virtually all modern cars have long run millions of lines of code—and AI is quickly becoming widely used in software development.

“There is of course software in the car, but you will have software in the engine,” Lyon said. “There is software in the websites. Software development, data management, content generation—knowledge management is a big thing.”

“I think we are all sort of overwhelmed in every industry by the amount of data and information,” she continued. Automotive companies haven’t been rushing to immediately implement generative AI on a wider scale, in part because they’re averse to the risk that comes with it, according to Lyon.

“Everyone is always starting with a proof of concept or a pilot,” Lyon said. “No one goes at scale.”

Read more here.—BH

New year, new tech, new problems—from the arrival of entirely new players in the AI market to unprecedented uncertainty about global IT supply chains. Here’s your roundup of what has happened in IT and cybersecurity around the globe over the first weeks of 2025.

Everything’s coming up DeepSeek

It’s not just DeepSeek. While the China-based AI company rattled tech investors in the US by showing off breakthrough AI at a fraction of the cost of US firms like OpenAI, it also spurred a wave of domestic investment into other Chinese firms.

Reuters reported the Hang Seng AI Theme Index, which tracks firms in Hong Kong, was up more than 5% the week of February 6. Other Hang Seng indexes showed chipmaking and IT markets jumping by double digits (over 11%) over the same period.

The jump is notable because Chinese investors have presumably priced in other risks, such as Donald Trump’s announcement of 10% tariffs on Chinese imports and immediate backlash from US legislators. Members of Congress have already proposed measures ranging from banning DeepSeek on government devices to a nationwide ban on importing Chinese AI products.

Keep reading here.—TM