India’s current Finance Minister is a woman. So are the leaders of many of its top financial companies. Despite so many women being at the forefront of the sector, men continue to believe that only they ‘get’ finance.

As a result, simplifying financial concepts to women patronisingly- mansplaining- has become somewhat of a norm.

So much of a norm, that even AI, the beacon for an equal future, when asked to explain financial concepts to men and women, did so differently for both.

While some women are rapidly reaching the top of the financial ladder, their overall contribution to India’s GDP is still just 18%. Biases, when left to fester, will only widen this gap. With Axis Bank’s stated purpose of being ‘Dil Se Open’ (Open to All), this Women’s Day, they wanted to question the inherent financial biases of today, in hopes of building a better tomorrow.

The most invisible bias that exists in today’s world is the bias in the virtual world.

AI, a machine learning tool that learns its intelligence from the data humans have generated over the years, is the future.

To test the ‘future’ on its claims of equality, we asked it some questions. Where the only variable we changed was gender. The answers revealed a deeper bias. Financial concepts were overtly simplified for a woman.

Our research revealed that AI, which learns from data humans have generated, has also inherited our biases.

Challenging algorithms of machine learning wasn’t going to fix the reality of human biases. It was imperative to take a stand of not feeding AI with biased human inputs, so that we can have an inclusive, gender-bias free tomorrow.

This film is an appeal, a call towards building a world that is unbiased, equal and paving that future of #FinanceWithoutBias.

Using multiple logins, accounts, IP addresses, locations we did an extensive interrogation of popular generative AI platforms to see how often this bias appears.

Our financial questions ranged from the simplest of concepts to advanced and fairly complex terms.

Patterns started to appear.

The answers generated for men were technical while the ones for women were dumbed down.

Women were explained with elaborate analogies to explain the simplest of concepts.

When we prompted it to generate analogies for both, it revealed a deeper bias with the analogies for women being cliched and stereotypical.

The conclusions were staring at us. AI was exhibiting the same biases that it would have picked up from multiple sources that have fed the internet through decades. It was also amply evident that AI being a continuous learning process, would gradually stop reflecting this bias if we could eliminate the bias in the real world.

The film #FinanceWithoutBias is a stark revelation of acquired human biases on AI platforms.

Released on International Women’s Day 2023, this work played on the latest global buzzword- AI, which was taking every industry, including Finance, by storm.

The film exposed the prevalence of ‘mansplaining’ in the financial sector and how AI platforms, having learnt from the deep-rooted biases in our data, are now amplifying and regenerating these biases.

The timing of its launch was strategically meant to start a conversation on International Women’s Day 2023.

The video showcased our investigative journey which revealed alarming patterns that highlighted the biases in 'Generative AI'.

In terms of the visual flow, we made it almost like a first-hand account of this investigation. We focused squarely on the data AI platforms were throwing at us and our inferences thereof.

We chose a generative AI inspired interface as the primary backdrop and design element for the video to give the narrative an authentic and terse meter.

With Axis Bank’s stated purpose of being ‘Dil Se Open’ (Open to All), the brand believes that true financial inclusion means zero tolerance for any bias.

This film is an appeal towards building a world that is free of gender-bias, equal and paving that future of #FinanceWithoutBias.

Once the film aired on Youtube and the brand’s Social Media channels, we started the unlearning journey, within our institutions.

A training module was rolled out to retrain 60,000+ Axis Bank employees across 4500 branches to create inclusive customer experiences for all.

The module, the first step of what we hope will be many, will help us prevent such biases towards female customers, at least within our establishments.

We were sparking a thought-provoking movement – both amongst our TG and within Axis Bank itself.

A training module was rolled out which was aimed at sensitizing 60,000+ employees in 4500+ branches about the unintentional biases they might exhibit during customer interactions with a vision to build even more inclusive customer experiences.

Conversations on Social Media indicated that this was the beginning of an attitudinal shift regarding gender in the financial sector. ‘Impactful, Thought Provoking, Eye-opening’ were the key reactions to this film.

Axis Bank was recognised as an industry leader for its vision of an inclusive and equitable future in the financial world.

It became the first bank in the country to take proactive steps to eliminate the possibility of bias when somebody interacts with the bank.

Impressions Delivered: 45 Million

Reach Achieved: 39 Million

Views Achieved: 7.2 Million