(Yicai Global) July 27 -- The finance industry is likely to be the first sector to experience significant disruptive changes from artificial intelligence, market insiders told Yicai Global.

"From the information available so far, AI is best at performing tasks that rely on empirical judgment," a chief executive at an AI startup said. He predicts AI will replace people for many repetitive mental tasks in the next few years.

AI's applications in the financial sector first emerged several years ago. The above startup aims to utilize AI in tackling long-standing problems associated with the traditional financial business in order to capture a market segment said to be worth trillions of yuan.

AI programs have replaced a growing number of repetitive tasks thanks to the rise of the technology, the assistant general manager at a Beijing-based public fund company said.

"For example, if all the information needs to be collected manually, one person can compile financial statements for up to two companies per day, but AI can perform the same tasks for more than 1,000 companies in a single day," he explained.

Replacement of human workers by AI in repetitive jobs is not necessarily a bad thing, the respondents said. "AI may replace some analysts in future, but many analysts will become technical managers or developers", said Zhang Jiacheng, head of venture capital at Tongkong Investment Group.

Similarly, the Beijing-based assistant general manager believes only a small number of jobs will disappear due to AI applications.

"Artificial intelligence applications need to be based on big data, computing resources and algorithms. AI can't be used if certain application environment requirements are not fulfilled," he added.

"It would be difficult to apply AI in investment decision-making because the outcome of investments is non-repeatable – for something we did today, the result will be different the next time even if it is done under exactly the same circumstances."