Bloomberg has launched cross-firm chatbots on its Instant Bloomberg (IB) platform, aiming to ease workflow disruptions and prioritise value-add communications.
The new product brings Bloomberg in line with competitor Symphony, who has offered cross-firm chatbots for the past seven years.
The service allows users to create chatbots that can gather internal information and share it with counterparties, intending to avoid workflow disruption, save time and reduce manual errors. It builds on the intrafirm chatbots introduced to the platform in 2023.
“We talked very closely with our clients to understand that what we are delivering is in line with how their workflows are evolving,” Roger Birch, head of product for IB communication and collaboration systems at Bloomberg told The DESK.
“We’ve seen this problem that as clients are going through digital transformation, they’re having to do a lot of context switching. For example, a trader is going back and forth with their counterparty, engaged in a high value communication dialogue. But then the counterparty asks for an order update. And then another and another, because the counterparty is being asked by teammates at their firm.”
This situation requires the trader to manually seek out information and copy-paste it to the chat, a process that takes time and increases the risk of manual errors.
“With the chatbots, the high-value human communication can continue, and either the trader or their counterparty can @mention the bot to provide order status updates,” Birch explained.
“The idea is to facilitate a low-value, high-repetition task without disrupting the high-value aspect of the communication.”
Information gathered by the chatbot is delivered in the JSON data format, with content appearing in a data-rich Bloomberg BCard. The bots can also provide free text, tables and links, and @mention others in the chat room.
“When a chatbot goes into a room, then the parties who are in the chat room get notified that it is there. There is a clear logo to differentiate the chatbot. There is full transparency,” Birch assured.
“Users will also be provided with a console, so they will know which rooms bots are in. The system is designed to prevent bots from being added to rooms accidentally. We’ve also set it up so that they can’t have a bot talking to a bot. That would lose the human-to-human value.”
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