Commonwealth Bank of Australia Develops AI-Powered Chatbots for Customer Testing
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) has taken a groundbreaking step in developing its own generative AI-powered chatbots to test customer responses to new products and messaging. This innovative initiative was unveiled at the recent South by Southwest Sydney 2023 event and is currently in its preliminary phase.
The main objective of this project is to determine how well the AI chatbots can mimic customer behavior and assess their effectiveness as an early-stage experimentation tool for rapid testing. By creating different AI-based personas and simulating customer interactions, the bank aims to gain insights into how customers might engage with new offerings.
It is important to note that these AI-based personas are not intended to replace the extensive market research that the bank already conducts directly with customers. Instead, the chatbots will serve as a supplementary method to generate simulations and experiment with new ideas in a safe and scalable manner.
Through this preliminary study, CBA has already built various customer personas that can raise concerns, ask questions, and identify issues similar to regular human interactions. The bank sees great potential in using this AI capability for simulating customer responses in challenging situations where face-to-face research is typically more difficult.
CBA Chief Decision Scientist, Dan Jermyn, highlighted the potential applications of this technology, such as understanding customer needs during natural disasters or helping customers in vulnerable situations. The bank aims to use generative AI to create scenarios that simulate these situations and test out suitable messaging and services.
Jermyn also emphasized the importance of understanding how well Australians are represented in the large language models (LLMs) used for AI development. The bank wants to ensure that the AI reflects the specific needs and behaviors of its Australian customer base, highlighting the importance of research and delivering AI safely at scale.
The project is part of CBA’s CommBank Gen.ai studio, which allows the bank to adapt existing AI models to meet its specific requirements. The bank is open to using different forms of generative AI and LLMs from various suppliers to achieve the best results for different use cases.
In conclusion, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s development of AI-powered chatbots for customer testing is a major step towards innovation and customer-centricity. By using generative AI to simulate customer interactions, the bank can gain valuable insights and experiment with new ideas in a controlled environment. This initiative showcases CBA’s commitment to delivering effective and personalized solutions to its customers, while also ensuring the safe and responsible use of AI technology.
