⇤ Back to edition

Australian Westpac and Greensboro, Georgia-based BankSouth just invested $15.5 million into Kasisto, a conversational AI firm that powers their digital assistants.  

AI-powered digital assistants can reduce call center volume and boost customer satisfaction by answering questions about routing numbers, balances, credit scores, bills, and more.  

Using chatbots to handle routine customer questions or guide users through new product sign-ups has become an increasingly common way for financial institutions to save resources and answer questions quickly or outside of business hours.   

In the past six months, BankSouth’s Kasisto-powered smart assistant, Rita, has spurred a 30% reduction in call center call volume and boasts a 96% containment rate (which means that customers are almost always getting their questions answered without needing to speak to a human). BankSouth director of marketing and digital banking, Neil Hediger, estimates that having Rita answer questions that would otherwise have been made via phone call during business hours have saved the bank more than $20,000 so far this year. 

Kasisto also counts JPMorgan Chase, Standard Chartered, and TD as customers. Meanwhile, US Bank, Ally, and Santander rely on Personetics while Bank of the West, BNP Paribas, and Deutsche Bank use Glia (an Insight Partner’s portfolio company).