NatWest and IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced enhancements to the bank’s virtual assistant, Cora, that will use generative AI to provide customers with access to a wider range of information through conversational interactions.
The bank will be among the first in the UK to deploy generative AI “with a virtual assistant enabling a safe, intuitive, and accessible experience in its digital services.”
Harnessing the power of responsible and ethical AI forms “part of the bank’s wider strategy, collaborating with IBM and other experts to help customers achieve financial wellbeing through personalized support.”
By leveraging IBM’s enterprise grade AI and data platform, watsonx, teams are “co-creating a digital concierge (Cora+) that evolves the chatbot’s capability into a more interactive and conversational experience, where this benefits customers.”
This innovative capability has been “designed to provide a more accessible and human interaction for customers looking to compare products and services across the product suite, or who are looking for information across the NatWest Group websites.”
Cora+ will be able to “access information from multiple secure sources that were previously inaccessible through chat alone, such as products, services, information about the bank and career opportunities.”
Customers can ask questions and receive responses in “a more natural, conversational style and are provided with links to requested information, which they can either view immediately or bookmark for later.”
Customers will continue to have “the option to speak on the phone with branch representatives during business hours.”
Wendy Redshaw, Chief Digital Information Officer of the NatWest Group’s Retail Bank said:
“We are a relationship bank in a digital world, building trusted, long-term relationships with our customers through meaningful and personalised engagement. Building on Cora’s success over the last five years, we’re working with companies like IBM to leverage the latest generative AI innovations that will help make Cora feel even more ‘human’ and, most importantly, a trusted, safe and reliable digital partner for our customers.”
As banks increasingly become digital enterprises, “:attracting and retaining top technology talent has become an industry priority.”
The importance of mindful innovation and safe exploration “is key, and aligned to NatWest’s Digital X Strategy, which focusses on three pillars: engineer, protect and operate.”
This provides the bank with opportunities to collaborate “with specialist industry leaders, like IBM, and work together on emerging technologies to deliver what matters most for customers.”
To accelerate the pace of innovation and delivery, the IBM Client Engineering team worked alongside the NatWest business and technology teams to “co-create, test, and validate the outcomes with the aim of safely and swiftly delivering a viable generative AI digital assistant.”