AI chatbots won't revolutionize finance, but intelligent workspaces will.
When ChatGPT launched, everyone rushed to build financial chatbots. But they missed two fundamental truths:
- The best AI model is useless without access to your data.
- Access to data isn't enough - AI needs to handle complete workflows, not just conversations.
The limitations of most financial chatbots:
1. They only work on a specific dataset (e.g 10-K/10-Q)
2. They can't handle complex financial workflows
3. They force analysts to work in an unnatural chat interface
Here's how OpenBB addresses these challenges:
First, we ensure comprehensive data access:
- Run everything on-premise or in your VPC
- Connect any data source: internal files, APIs, third-party feeds, market data - anything
- Use a universal data layer that standardizes everything (whether it's CSV, Excel, Snowflake, or APIs)
But the real innovation?
We're building AI differently.
Instead of forcing analysts to chat with a bot, we're embedding intelligence directly into their workspace.
Think dashboards with widgets, not chat windows. Data visualization, not text conversations.
This is what Kimberly Tan said:
_Chat was the first experimental interface — now I expect there will be new, novel interaction mechanisms. In this phase, AI agents will be able to take direct action in the workflow, and the UI will be reimagined for humans to review work or do QA._
For research & analytics, the result is an AI-native workspace.
A workspace where:
- AI appears only when needed (for insights, summaries, or generating visualizations)
- Firms can adopt AI at their own pace
- Analysts keep their familiar workflows while gaining AI superpowers