In the ever-evolving digital banking landscape, we are witnessing a paradigm shift. The accelerated rate of transformation, marked in part by the introduction of
For banks, it is imperative to grasp and capitalize on this shift, recognizing the growing importance of a symbiotic relationship between man and machine in the banking ecosystem. This understanding is essential for steering financial services into the future, navigating an environment where technology and human experience converge.
With each technological evolution, banks strive to enhance the customer experience, aiming for greater efficiency and user-friendliness. Intelligent virtual assistants are at the vanguard of this digital transformation, promising to redefine banking as we know it.
Since its inception in 2018,
These virtual assistants offer a glimpse into the future of banking, with driverless navigation for day-to-day banking functionality that ranges from simple account inquiries to complex tasks, such as linking external accounts for transfers, delivering proactive insights and supplying predictive alerts. Despite these forerunners, the banking industry overall has a significant journey ahead in consistently providing intelligent virtual assistant experiences that meet the growing needs and expectations of customers across the spectrum of large and community banks and credit unions.
Today, most banks offer chatbots with varying degrees of ability.
When customers are targeted directly with fake text messages that lead to account takeover, artificial intelligence, and in some cases generative AI, can play a role in fighting the fraud, experts say.
The delineation of skill sets between chatbots and advanced virtual assistants remains vast, though. Chatbots operate based on preset responses, offering limited interaction, while intelligent virtual assistants boast a dynamic model, adapting and responding to user requests with a widening range of skills that successfully assist customers.
Virtual assistants, emerging from humble mobile app beginnings, have undergone an evolutionary journey, and now have unique channel-dependent capabilities. This has led to discrepancies in customer experience across industries and among financial service providers, contrasting the rudimentary capabilities of chatbots with the more sophisticated skills of AI-assisted virtual assistants. These differences become problematic when users switch between financial services providers on various channels, such as desktop, mobile web or phone apps, encountering divergent experiences — even within the same bank, credit union, credit card issuer or investment firm.
The essence of true intelligent virtual assistants is rooted in their advanced technological foundation, which includes nascent, generative artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and natural language processing. This sophisticated combination empowers virtual assistants to not only understand and respond to uniquely phrased user queries but also evolve through customer input and inquiries, ensuring that they remain in step with the changing preferences and needs of users. They are not static but designed to adapt and grow, drawing insights from continuous interactions, representing a significant advance from the basic Q&A format of chatbots.
Within mobile banking, virtual assistants will become increasingly vital, seamlessly guiding users through intricate banking transactions and financial insights. Even in today's emerging stage, intelligent virtual assistants promise to transform digital banking. Features such as predictive notifications and proactive alerts — including notice of cash shortfalls, duplicate transactions, subscription fees and guidance on finances — are trending, signaling significant advances. Coupled with two-way voice interactions that reduce or eliminate the friction of tapping through navigation paths to find information, conduct transactions or acquire services, they will dramatically change the narrative of digital banking as we know it today.
Financial institutions are guardians of customers' money with fiduciary responsibilities, and they will therefore tread lightly with implementing developments in generative AI for customer-facing assistance and transactions. Nevertheless, banking's future will be driven by the prudent evolution of virtual assistants that are more intuitive, automated and customer focused, metamorphosing from customer support tools and bots to become key digital agents in the customer relationship.
Building innovative digital banking with seamless APIs to incorporate third-party functionality will help drive advancements in virtual assistants and the way in which customers interact with banking apps — affording opportunities to democratize capabilities for customers of regional and community financial institutions as well. Harnessing this potential is essential for the success of mainstream banking in a digitally fluent, customer-centric environment. As virtual assistants become central to banking, financial institutions of all sizes must embrace and leverage this transformation to redefine the customer experience.
