OpenAI’s AI innovation ChatGPT has sent chills down the spines of tech giants and governments around the world. Recently, Russian lender Sberbank took a step to challenge OpenAI by unveiling the invite-only testing mode of their own AI chatbot, GigaChat. The program’s edge over its rivals is its ability to interact seamlessly and proficiently in Russian. This comes after the Ukraine crisis, which triggered Western nations to reduce their exports to Russia. Sberbank has consequently devoted considerable resources to technological advancement.
Sberbank is the largest lender in the entire Eurasian region, a financial-industrial group present in 20 countries, and one of the most prominent players in the Russian banking sector. Founded in 1841 and owned by the Central Bank of Russia, the bank has a unique blend of traditional and innovative services across the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, and India. In Russia, Sberbank caters to nearly 48 million users, guarantees deposits in its banking products, and controls deposits amounting to $570 billion. Along with that, the bank also has been heavily investing in financial technologies.
GigaChat was unveiled in 2016 by CEO Herman Gref and is the first ever chatbot developed in Russia. It has an expansive library of natural language processing and deep learning algorithms, allowing it to converse fluently and show an impressive level of understanding. The chatbot is expected to be a versatile tool as it can converse through text, voice, as well as image, appealing to a broad range of customers. GigaChat was made available to the public in two different forms – in-app on iOS and Android, and as a standalone webchat for the desktop. This Russian-made AI is the perfect example of the country’s upsurge in the tech space.
