Hello, and welcome to our ongoing series on Generative AI in Finance. I’m Sylvain Forté, CEO and co-founder of SESAMm, and in our first article of the series, we’ll explore how generative AI is reshaping the financial industry. At SESAMm, we’ve been fortunate to be at the forefront of this revolution, witnessing the transformational power of large language models like ChatGPT and its iterations.

Unprecedented Evolution in Generative AI

Let's begin with an overview of the current generative AI landscape. Over the last few years, we've seen an explosion in the capabilities of generative AI, particularly in text processing. From BERT to GPT4, large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated increasingly impressive capabilities. These models, performing at a human level for many tasks, are rapidly evolving, making the past six months feel like an exponential leap in the AI domain.
Generative AI is no longer a speculative idea but rather an early adoption phase of a powerful technology. At SESAMm, we've leveraged our partnerships with OpenAI and other organizations to gain high-level access to these AI models, allowing us to harness this potential and democratize access to intelligence. It’s an exciting shift that, while reshuffling business models and job roles, promises enormous productivity gains and increased overall value. The key, of course, is ensuring that these benefits extend to society as a whole.

The Disruption in Financial Sector

The finance sector, with its vast array of text-based tasks, stands to gain enormously from generative AI. Any repetitive yet intelligence-heavy tasks — think verification, document generation, or client communication — are ripe for automation.
Finance, despite being a highly intelligent sector, often sees that intelligence is misspent on routine tasks. Generative AI can realign this balance, reducing costs, enhancing service quality, and building trust. Whether private equity, asset management, or commercial banking, AI can streamline processes, delivering an efficiency boost that significantly enhances customer satisfaction.
In private equity, the automation possibilities could reshape the sector, bringing it closer to the public markets. In asset management and banking, cost reduction and service enhancement could lead to a dramatic rise in customer satisfaction.

Concrete Use Cases of Generative AI in Finance

So, how does this look in practice? Generative AI can automate numerous finance tasks, including creating reports, verifying information, summarizing news or earnings calls, and even making internal data searchable. Imagine a system that can help asset managers match various types of datasets based on a user query in natural language, thereby making data access and interpretation simpler. This could vastly improve the user experience with business software, reducing effort and time spent. While some applications, like a fully automated financial advisor or AI-led trading and hedging, might present more significant challenges, their potential benefits could revolutionize these sectors.

Overcoming Roadblocks

Of course, every transformation comes with challenges. The key is discerning which use cases are suited for full automation and which require human oversight. Data privacy concerns will also influence decisions about whether to use proprietary or open-source models.
There will inevitably be resistance to change within organizations, but the 'Google test' can help navigate data privacy issues: if an employee would conduct that search or share that data on Google, it's likely safe to share with a proprietary Generative AI solution.

Generative AI and Risk Mitigation

Risk mitigation strategies can greatly benefit from generative AI. From detecting and preventing fraud to managing market risks, generative AI can verify identities, cross-reference databases, and analyze vast amounts of data. For instance, at SESAMm, we're developing an ESG controversy detection solution that can be an invaluable tool for risk mitigation.

Improving Investment Decision-Making

Generative AI’s ability to process and analyze massive amounts of data accurately and quickly makes it a formidable tool for investment decision-making. By identifying patterns, trends, and correlations that humans might miss, generative AI can provide a more comprehensive, data-driven perspective, aiding portfolio optimization, asset allocation, and investment risk management.

Streamlining Operations for Efficiency

Generative AI's efficiency and accuracy promise to transform financial institutions. By automating time-consuming tasks like report generation and client communication, AI can free employees to focus on strategic tasks that require critical thinking.
Imagine being able to ask complex questions to your banking app in natural language and getting immediate, accurate responses. Such high-quality service was unthinkable a few years ago, but with generative AI, it's within our reach.
The future of the financial sector is undeniably tied to the successful implementation of generative AI solutions. The potential is vast, the challenges are surmountable, and the rewards are great. In my view, generative AI is the key to a more efficient, cost-effective, and customer-centric financial sector.

To learn more about SESAMm’s innovative solutions and how we’re pushing the boundaries with generative AI, read the second part of this series here.

Reach out to SESAMm

TextReveal's web data analysis of over five million public and private companies is essential for keeping tabs on ESG investment risks. To learn more about how you can analyze web data or request a demo, contact one of our representatives.

All our best wishes for this new year 2019!

2018 proved to be an eventful year for SESAMm with multiple renowned customers acquired, our A series fundraising campaign, numerous prizes won and milestones reached. Here is a look back at our rewarding year 2018 followed by our next steps for 2019.

Successful market entry in the US and around the world

The rapid growth of the alternative data industry and of SESAMm

As a Fintech company specialized in alternative data for Asset Management, 2018 represented a thrilling year in our industry and 2019 already promises to be even more exciting.

During 2018, after our very first business trip in the United States, our international sales development beyond Europe began accelerating. In just one year, we already signed contracts with multiple clients. These include major hedge funds in the US and a major global trading company managing $100 billion in financial assets and part of the Top 10 in its market. The US market represents a powerful strategic growth driver and we are already preparing to open an office there soon!

SESAMm signed its first contract with a client in Africa: Ipro Investment, renown asset manager established for 25 years specialized in emerging markets. Finally, we also signed a contract with our first Japanese client, Nikko Global Wrap, one of the subsidiaries of Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management which is a major asset manager in Japan managing JPY 1.7 trillion.

Strengthening and developing our position in Europe

At the European level, SESAMm has also extended its customer portfolio:

• Groupama AM: new major clients and leading French Asset Management players managing €103 billion Asset under Management (AuM);
• Société Générale: leading French bank present all over the world;
• Raiffeisen Bank International: one of the leading banks in Europe with more than 50,000 employees servicing over 16.5 million customers and possessing around 2,400 business outlets;
• GT Patrimoine : the largest consulting and private management firm in the Lorraine area and based in France for 12 years.

In addition, after our 1st successful collaboration, a new contract was signed with Candriam, leading Asset Management firm and members of the New York Life Group, managing more than $112 billion AuM worldwide.

We are very proud to see how much traction we gained in just a year. The growing use and interest in alternative data for the Asset Management industry, both for quantitative and fundamental funds and asset managers, lead us to prepare for new opportunities of growth & business development.

Cutting edge solutions to respond to market needs

Big Data & AI for Cryptocurrencies

Our first cryptocurrency project began in early 2018. Initially, we started tracking the evolution of the most popular cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) and we analyzed their social data to produce social sentiment & emotions indicators. These indicators have since been integrated into our visualization platform of market sentiment, L’Humeur des Marchés.

This led us to establish a unique partnership based on L’Humeur des Marchés with NapoleonX, a major player as the leading French cryptocurrency manager: the first sentiment and emotion cryptocurrencies analysis destined for the general public. Since then, ETH and BTC sentiment, emotions & opinion value from SESAMm has been available to individual investors and the general public on NapoleonX platform.

The evolution of L’Humeur des Marchés

Our platform L’Humeur des Marchés is an essential tool to guide companies in their investments. During 2018, multiple improvements were added into L’Humeur des Marchés to further enhance its insights & analytics. For example, users have now the possibility to build automated strategies which can generate daily trading signals. Multiple new features were also added such as a strategic backtesting system, daily alerts with 3 years of history and day+1 signal to forecast market movements giving asset managers an edge over competitors.

"L'humeur des marchés" is SESAMm's data visualization platform to analyze market sentiment & emotion for asset management

L’Humeur des Marchés, our data visualization platform

Finally, additional filters have been added to better study & analyze market sentiment: there are now 6 different filters for data sources (sort by sources from web & press, news, blogs, discussions, social trading or all of them) and 9 languages covered (sort by English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Italian, German or all of them). These new filters allow for a wider and more accurate coverage of assets, leading to improved tools & insights for investment decision.

Global recognition & awards for SESAMm

To accomplish our worldwide ambitions, we have started being more and more present abroad, especially at international events. They represent great occasions to promote SESAMm, demonstrate the unique benefits and advantages brought by our technologies & solutions and finally create business opportunities.

This year, we participated in many international events in the US and in Japan, including New York and Hong Kong for Eagle Alpha’s Alternative Data event, Canada, Africa and even London at the French Fintech Tour.

Having been selected for unique international awards reinforces our confidence in the benefits of our solutions for the Asset Management industry, for example with “Talk data to me” by Neudata, Elevator Lab Competition, and Groupama’s award “Créateur de confiance” (Trust Creator) among others.

SESAMm won the pitch "Talk data to Me" of Alternative Data Summit event by Neudata

SESAMm pitch “Talk Data to Me” winner during Alternative Data Summit by Neudata

Moreover, SESAMm has competed in several acceleration programs, in which we were selected in the following ones:

• Fintech Business Camp Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government accelerator program by Invest Tokyo and powered by Accenture;
• Elevator Lab, Acceleration program of Raiffeisen Bank International where SESAMm competed and was selected;
• French Tech Tour America, IMPACT USA’s program to prepare and discover North America’s markets & opportunities;  
• Pass French Tech, La French Tech’s highly selective program for hyper-growth startups & companies.

SESAMm’s plans for 2019: recruitment, development and growth

This year, we are very proud to see our team grow so much in so little time: we had 16 collaborators at the beginning of January 2018 and we are now a team of 28 members! Talented profiles have joined SESAMm team with NLP, AI & Quant engineers & experts from world-renowned schools. New collaborators will join SESAMm in the first quarter of 2019 and we are still recruiting in various fields such as Data Science, Quantitative Analysis, IT and Natural Language Processing among others. You can find all our offers on our dedicated page SESAMm Career!

Following our international success, especially in the US and in Japan, we are now preparing to open an office in the US in the following months and are already considering this option for Japan. Next month’s promise to be exciting and we will be participating in multiple events such as AI & Data Science for trading in New York in March, Machine Learning in Quant Finance by GFMI in April, and many events & conferences on alternative data, data science, Artificial Intelligence and Big Data for Asset Management around the world.

As you can see, 2018 represented SESAMm an exceptional year for its growth with new customers, including global companies, technological improvements for our solutions & services and a bigger and even more motivated team! Our major event in 2018 was the accomplishment of a €2.6 million Series A fundraising campaign, which enabled us to continue our international development, mainly in America and Asia, and the recruitment of many profiles. 2019 will represent another step for SESAMm to become a leading company in the alternative data solutions in the world. Stay tuned: SESAMm news will arrive soon!

In this final part of our series on AI in finance, we look at how new technological advancements will change the finance world. Over the next ten years, using data and AI for financial decisions will become common practice.

What is Generative AI and Why It Matters in Finance

New AI technologies, such as GPT-3.5 and GPT-4, are becoming part of everyday business tools. Although we're just scratching the surface of what they can do, these technologies will soon help us with tasks like writing emails, creating presentations, and making financial reports.

Take ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) indicators, for example. Right now, analysts often manually collect this data from financial reports. But soon, advanced AI models will handle this work, leading to more interactive and intelligent business tools.

What's Next for AI Technology

The following versions of these AI models will be even better than the ones we have today. Given that current models perform some tasks better than humans, it's exciting to think about their future capabilities. We expect these new models to excel in many different tasks.
In the future, we'll see machines handle most tasks, which could be good for the world if we use this technology wisely in our everyday work.

How Generative AI Will Change Finance

Just like the internet and smartphones did, generative AI will change how businesses operate. Companies that adapt will do well, while others might struggle. One significant change will be in jobs, especially for analysts. As data becomes easier to collect and understand, analysts will shift to roles where they guide and interact with AI-based business systems.

How SESAMm Uses Generative AI

At SESAMm, AI is already making our work more efficient. It's changing both our internal processes and the features we offer our clients. For example, we use advanced AI models to automate data annotation for ESG and SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) alerts. This has saved our analysts 30% of their time.
We're also creating a client-friendly interactive tool that will be a part of our dashboard. Our aim is to start with a demo and then fully automate the extraction and summary of key ESG and SDG events.

SESAMm’s Future with AI

In the long term, AI will play a big role in improving our services. We plan to use AI to automatically create reports, including detailed ESG or competitive analyses for private equity firms.
AI is central to our innovation plans. We see it as a way to speed up our growth and establish SESAMm as a key player in the industry.

Our Long-term Objectives with AI

Our main goal is to make it easy for users to find accurate and timely data and ESG insights. The power of AI comes from its ability to quickly sort through a lot of information and pull out what’s important.

Another key aim is to help direct investments toward truly beneficial companies by improving our ESG measurement capabilities.

Staying Competitive in an AI World

To stay ahead, we are committed to raising internal awareness about AI and encouraging its active use across all teams. We also understand that a culture of innovation and transparency is crucial for success, particularly in ESG matters.

Final Thoughts

AI will change the way we work, but it's not just a tool—it's a vital part of our business strategy. It will help us improve our processes, services, and client relationships. Ultimately, AI is about much more than efficiency. It’s about unlocking new opportunities, empowering our team, and driving sector-wide innovation.

In case you missed it, please check out the previous parts of the series:

• Part 1.
• Part 2.

Reach out to SESAMm

TextReveal's web data analysis of over five million public and private companies is essential for keeping tabs on ESG investment risks. To learn more about how you can analyze web data or request a demo, contact one of our representatives.