Katherine Stepp on company history
From AI’s Role in Revolutionizing Technology with Perplexity’s Dmitry Shevelenko & FactSet’s Kate Stepp · · RiskReversalMedia
“We started as a data integrator and then FactSet began collecting our own data; a lot of the very early machine learning came from needing to parse documents and sources in a way that we could retrieve and database that data, and over time that became much more integrated into the product and the user experience — a perfect foundation when generative AI came along.”
On , Katherine Stepp, Executive VP & CTO at Factset Research Systems Inc, spoke about company history during AI’s Role in Revolutionizing Technology with Perplexity’s Dmitry Shevelenko & FactSet’s Kate Stepp on RiskReversalMedia.
About Katherine Stepp
In a December 2024 webinar, Stepp discussed FactSet's approach to integrating generative AI into its financial data platform. She said that the company's history of integrating and collecting data provided a foundation for applying machine learning, and that generative AI has "revolutionized that efficiency factor." Stepp described how FactSet uses AI to understand user queries and then applies its existing, trusted query mechanisms to retrieve structured content, rather than relying solely on a pre-trained model for answers. She stated that this approach provides transparency and auditability, allowing users to trace information back to individual documents. Stepp also addressed user concerns about privacy and security, stating that FactSet does not train its internal systems on prompts from enterprise users. She noted that the company builds AI features in a compartmentalized way to allow for flexibility across different use cases. Stepp highlighted that AI-driven tools, such as a transcript assistant placed alongside familiar sources, have helped users adopt the technology in a "safer" manner, and that dynamic querying allows users to automate workflows like portfolio commentary, reducing tasks that previously took hours to minutes.