4 Keys Banks Need to Unlock Value From Artificial Intelligence

Banks of all sizes are tuning up their technology to better compete for customer loyalty by focusing on areas involving consumer interactions. But bank leaders need to understand that artificial intelligence, or AI, alone can’t revolutionize the customer experience.

In order for AI investments to elicit instant, human-like understanding and communication, banks must combine AI technology with:

• Access to quality data.
• Customer experience solutions that support responsiveness, natural interaction and context retention.
• Security for enrollment, authentication and fraud detection – indispensable in the context of retail banking.

Data
Quality and Access
Data is the fuel driving AI-based experiences. That means the quality of the available data about the user for a specific use case and the ability to access this data in a real-time, secure fashion are mission-critical aspects of an AI investment.

Unsurprisingly, increasing the quality of data and providing seamless, secure access to this data has been a challenge that banks have grappled with for years.

But institutions must overcome these data utilization hurdles in order to offer an AI-based experience that is better than mediocre. The best outcome? Users will no longer suffer through disjointed experiences or delayed satisfaction caused by siloed data, multiple data connection hops and antiquated back ends that haven’t been modernized to today’s standard.

Collection and Understanding
Big data – the collection of very large data sets that can be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends and associations – goes hand-in-hand with AI. When it comes to consumer banking, an AI solution for banks should store all customer interaction information, from words used to communicate with the bot to actions taken by the user, so it can be analyzed and applied in future interactions. To do this, banks need to adopt AI technology that integrates a learning loop that’s always running in the background.

As data accumulates, AI-powered bots should get smarter over time. Behavioral, transaction and preference information enables banks to create personalized experiences that elevates customer experience to the next level. J.D. Power’s 2022 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study found that 78% of respondents would continue using their bank if they received personalized support, but just 44% of banks are actually delivering it.

Without the right data, there’s no intelligence to inform interactions.

Customer Experience
If someone asked, “What’s your name?” and it took you 8 seconds to respond, the conversation would seem unnatural and disjointed. Similarly, AI technology requires real-time responsiveness to live up to its human-like image. Additionally, bank customers expect to be able to seamlessly transition between interaction channels without having to rehash their issue each time they get transferred, change interaction channels or follow up. Banks can only achieve this omnichannel customer experience that incorporates customer interaction information across channels with customer experience technology that integrates AI.

Consumers now rank omnichannel consistency as the most important dimension of customer experience, according to a 2021 Harris poll, up from No. 2 in 2019. In a Redpoint Global research study, 88% of respondents said that a bank should have seamless, relevant and timely communications across all channels; less than half (45%) reported that their bank effectively achieved this objective. An omnichannel customer experience is foundational for AI.

Security
As powerful as artificial intelligence can be as a competitive advantage in banking, lack of strong security measures is a nonstarter. In the latest The Economist Intelligence Unit Survey, bankers identified privacy and security concerns as the most prominent barrier to adopting and incorporating AI technologies in their organization. Thankfully, ironclad AI is within reach.

While AI capability is great, its usability is limited if its security is not up to par. An AI bot can go far beyond answering your customers’ basic questions if bank transactions are authenticated and secure; it can perform tasks such as retrieving account balances, listing and searching transactions, making payments, transferring funds and more. Imagine the impact that a friendly and reliable virtual teller, available 24/7, could have on your institution.

Four in five senior banking executives agree that unlocking value from artificial intelligence will distinguish outperformers from underperformers. To access its value, a bank’s customer-facing system must be supported by four pillars: AI understanding, quality data, omnichannel customer experience technology and security.

When technology budgets are tight, bank leaders must invest wisely; not all AI solutions are created equal. Chasing the new shiny thing can waste dollars if bank decision makers don’t have a handle on the scope of what their institution needs. Knowing which pieces of the puzzle will complete the picture is a competitive differentiator. Now, your bank can unlock the value of AI and win.