A new high-potential at Commerzbank
Commerzbank has a new service employee, and quite a remarkable one at that. After all, "Ava" is expected to do nothing less than "elevate the customer experience to the next level," as boldly advertised in a statement from the bank. The bank even talks about a "new chapter in Commerzbank's IT strategy" – because Ava is a banking avatar. An artificial intelligence serving as a "virtual assistant in the form of a digitized person" aiming to provide the bank's 2.2 million users with "the best digital experience," as further described.
Imagine this: Ava is expected to interact with customers "in natural language." Well, that would likely distinguish Ava from the numerous chatbots in the market, whose favorite response to customer inquiries often tends to be, "I'm sorry, I didn't understand that." But, if a conversation in the language of the customer is already taking the customer experience to the next level, what does that say about the previous customer experience?
AI "Ava" can read out account balances
Ava potentially has much more to offer. Microsoft is responsible for its development, as the avatar utilizes the "Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service for advanced GPT models," per the announcement. OpenAI is the company behind the hyped chatbot ChatGPT, and its AI guru Sam Altman has recently caused quite a stir. Be that as it may, Commerzbank emphasizes that the project is still in its early phases.
In the initial phase, Ava can assist with "account and detail queries such as checking account balances or blocking credit or debit cards" and answer "general questions about Commerzbank, Commerzbank products, or service requests," as the bank clarified upon inquiry. This doesn't sound like a breakthrough compared to conventional online banking. Undoubtedly, with Ava, Commerzbank is exploring a smart and hyped topic. ChatGPT has made AI accessible to the masses. However, how much IQ the AI will ultimately possess remains to be seen. Until then, Commerzbank's marketing department has achieved yet another victory in the race among banks for the next innovative AI application.
