Commerzbank generalizes its humanoid AI assistant

The second German private bank, Commerzbank, just announced the deployment of its virtual assistant named Ava in its customer services. It takes the form of an avatar and promises a personalized accompaniment, both in form and background. It mainly presents a humanoid form of AI, already proposed in the past by other actors.

FACTS

• Commerzbank now puts forward its humanoid virtual assistant (recognizing the traits of a true actress) based on AI and named Ava. The latter must accompany the bank's clients in the realization of:
  • their daily demands;
  • certain account management operations (ordering a new credit card, blocking or unlocking a card or changing the ceilings).

• In addition to daily support for basic tasks, Ava is also expected to offer personalized advice to its customers on the various banking services available that may suit their needs, but also on their personal situation (ceiling of their card for example).

• The service is now fully accessible 24 hours a day via Commerzbank's bank app. It allows to exchange with Ava in natural language, in German at first, but an English version is also being developed.

• To propose this new model, Commerzbank relied on a signed partnership with Microsoft. Ava thus integrates the AI technologies of Microsoft Azure.

ISSUES

• Realizing its efforts : While Commerzbank today announces the deployment of its avatar, this initiative represents, for the bank, more a realization than a real strategic innovation. The German bank presented Ava for the first time at the end of 2023. But his model, then under construction, did not yet have a name as it is today at the time of its actual deployment.

• Follow the trend Today, Commerzbank's decision is driven by its ambition to automate the customer relationship while providing it with a touch of additional humanisation, but also by its commitment to follow a trend that is now well established in the democratisation of virtual assistants in financial services.

PERSPECTIVE

• Commerzbank's virtual assistant is now presented in the form of a humanoid and thus carries the promise of a more personalised relationship between artificial intelligence and bank customers. This promise was already fulfilled in the past by Natwest with Cora or SEB with Amelia.

• This form of humanoid artificial intelligence has already been deployed by other financial services actors with very specific arguments and ambitions justifying the choice of this model.

• UBank, with Mia In 2019, it chose the humanoid AI to reassure its customers in the fulfillment of their specific requests related to real estate credit, a subject of difficult to totally automated importance. The Macif chose in 2021 to avatar in 3D able to communicate in sign language, bringing a new, more functional and intelligent dimension to humanoid chatbots.

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