By Mandy Reed, Marketing Manager (Global)

“Smart machines offer huge potential benefits to early adopters within financial services, even with regulators barring banks from some use cases. CIOs must proactively prioritize potential investments in smart machines and begin pilots in 2016.” *

Everything seems to be getting smarter these days – our phones, our TVs, our watches – and now even our banking experience. In their recent report Where Banks Can Use Smart Machines, Gartner Analysts Tom Austin and David Furlonger explore the impact six smart machines (smart vision systems, virtual customer assistants, virtual personal assistants, smart advisors, other natural-language processing technologies and smart campus infrastructure) will have on financial institutions during the next few years.

The report discusses both the direct and indirect impact these technologies will have on financial services and provides recommendations for CIOs and other business leaders on how to work together to exploit smart machines. Early adopters have the potential to take advantage of huge benefits, including a positive impact on customer experience, productivity and commercial value throughout the value chain.

Virtual customer assistants (VCAs) are one of the key smart machines discussed by Gartner. As a VCA vendor mentioned in the report, we at Creative Virtual have experienced first-hand the evolution of this technology within the financial sector. Like our phones and TVs, VCAs are becoming ‘smarter’ and have proven their value by improving customer experience while reducing support costs for organisations currently utilising the technology.

Gartner includes some powerful sample use cases of smart machines already being used by banks. Commercial Bank of Dubai (CBD) is included on this list with their VCA ‘Ask Sara’ which is powered by Creative Virtual’s V-Person™ technology. We know this is a great use case for financial organisations researching VCA technology. CBD has not only won several external awards for their VCA, but they have received a great response from their customers. They now offer ‘Ask Sara’ across desktops, mobiles, tablets and kiosks, and in 2015 implemented an Arabic version (in addition to the existing English version) of their VCA to provide a self-service option to even more of their customers.

“At CBD, our goal is to bring online banking to the next level: smarter, easier and responsive. Virtual Assistant Sara helps us do that across desktops, mobiles, tablets and kiosks.”

– Deputy General Manager, Personal Banking Group, CBD

Gartner’s Where Banks Can Use Smart Machines is available to download from Creative Virtual for a limited time (request your copy here), so don’t miss this opportunity to read the full report.

After reading the report, be sure to check out CBD’s Customer Success Story for more details about the implementation and positive impact of their VCA.

 

 

* Gartner, Where Banks Can Use Smart Machines, Tom Austin & David Furlonger, 16 January 2016

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.