The Value of Bots for Banks

 We were closely involved in the knowledge architecture for bots for consumer interfaces, so this is a very interesting development.  How does this adapt to the conversation? The goals of the participants?  The risks of error?  The opening questions are important,  how will this help people?  Good to follow.

In the Verge: 

Do you need a bot to talk to your bank?
And if you do, how will you use it?   By Dieter Bohn

Dror Oren, VP of Product for Kasisto, thinks it's about time that the likes of Facebook, Microsoft, and Google caught up. His company has quietly been building the infrastructure (and getting funding) for bots for a couple of years. Today, it's unveiling a banking bot — so you can chat with it instead of dealing with the bank's website, app, or (heaven forbid) calling in to customer service.

Or at least, that's the idea. For Kasisto, the primary target market is actually the banks — so it's releasing two bots. But before we get to the bot meant for banks, let's start with the one you can actually use, designed for for consumers. Though it's functional, it's more of a proof of concept than actual product. Called MyKAI, you can use it to query data from your various banking accounts. It's a little bit like Intuit's Mint service, but in a chat interface.  ... " 

Kasisto Virtual Assistant

My continued look at virtual assistants "  ..... AI-Driven Virtual Assistant from Kasisto Powers India's First Mobile-Only Bank ... Asian banking innovator DBS Bank makes strategic investment in Kasisto ... "  Some good details in the press release.

Intelligent Personal Assistants

At today's CSIG meeting Jim Spohrer pointed us to the growth of the intelligent personal assistant,  aka VDA,  and that the Wikipedia article on the topic had a good list and links to work under underway.   The article contains much more.   The idea continues to grow.   Items marked with a * have been covered here.  Here is the list:

(This post is NOW continually updated with new links, hundreds of posts)

*Accenture's MyWizard'
*Accenture's Amelia
*Alibaba Tmall Genie
*Alibaba using AliGenie 
Braina
*Microsoft's 'Cortana'
*Microsoft's 'Invoke'  With Harman-Kardon Using Cortana
*Microsoft Home Hub
*Enterra Aila
*Amazon Echo
*Amazon Show   Amazon Echo with screen
*Google's 'Google Now'
HTC's 'Hidi'
Maluuba Inc's 'Maluuba'
*Cognitive Code's 'SILVIA'
*Cisco's Spark Conferencing Assistant
*Apple's 'Siri'
*Apple's HomePod
*IBM Watson Analytics
*IBM Watson Assistant
*Wolfram Finance
*Wolfram Alpha
Nuance's 'Vlingo'
*Samsung's 'S Voice'
*Samsung's Otto
*Samsung's Bixby  (S8 Phone Assistant)
*BlackBerry's 'BlackBerry Assistant'
*LG's 'Voice Mate'
*LG's Hub Robot
*Baidu's Duer.
*Baidu's Little Fish
*Pepper Retail Robot by Softbank
* Facebook M
*Mattel Aristotle by Nabi  (Baby Monitor)
*Jill Watson  - TA at Ga Tech
*Mycroft
*Kasisto Financial Assistant
*Kuri by Bosch
*Ginger by Intel  (unknown since its acquisition)
*Otto by Samsung
*Viv by Viv Labs
*Google Home   by Google
*Google Assistant by Google
*DingDong by LingLong
*Einstein by Salesforce (links to current collaboration with Oracle?)
*Project Evo by Microsoft
*Connie by Hilton/IBM
*Smart Assistant by Lenovo
*SoundHound for Hyundai
*Essential Home


See also Virtual Personal Assistants.  In Wikipedia.