SEB deploys IPsoft’s virtual agent, Amelia, for customer facing ops
Robots are coming to Swedish banking
SEB will be the first bank to use IPsoft’s cognitive technology for customer-facing operations in the Swedish language. The artificial intelligence (AI) solution, known as Amelia, will be integrated into the front-office set-up at SEB by the end of this year.
The project follows on from a successful deployment of Amelia for SEB’s internal service desk, supporting 15,000 staff. In the customer-facing role, Amelia will be dealing with one million clients of SEB.
“Customer service is a key differentiator. By making Amelia available to respond to queries, we enhance our customers’ flexibility of receiving individualised support at a time that suits them and without any delays in response,” states Rasmus Järborg, chief strategy officer at SEB.
Within the first three weeks of employing Amelia as an IT service desk agent at SEB, “she held over 4,000 conversations with 700 users and was able to resolve the majority of those queries independently, allowing employees to get consistent support without delay”, Järborg adds.
IPsoft says it will also help SEB set up “its own cognitive centre of excellence to build an in-house talent pool of individuals who can mentor Amelia”.
Chetan Dube, CEO of IPsoft, believes that “digital labour will provide a fundamental shift in the way that banks manage their operations”. For instance, “the burden of guaranteeing compliance adherence could become a thing of the past as virtual agents never deviate from regulations and provide a full audit trail of every interaction”. Unless they decide to rebel, of course…
Humans and robots
New York-based IPsoft developed its cognitive virtual agent “to problem-solve like a human, but in a fraction of the time”. The company says Amelia’s semantic understanding helps her interact with customers through natural language and even senses emotions.
“Unlike any other virtual agent, Amelia understands the full context of the dialogue, and applies logic to her knowledge of the subject matter to determine the right answer or best course of action,” IPsoft claims.
Swedish speaking Amelia at SEB is the first non-English deployment of IPsoft’s AI platform.
