CIO & LEADER-Issue-01-April 2018 (1)

Insight
OOnline travel portal, Yatra.com and Kotak Mahindra Bank
are the latest in a series of consumer services companies that
are leveraging AI-powered chatbots to serve their customers
better. While almost all leading banks, especially in the
private sector, have already launched these bots, Yatra is one
of the early ones in the online travel business. Online retailer
Flipkart soft-launched a similar conversational search
capability in early 2017.
However, one segment that has led the use of AI-powered
virtual assistants from the front is banking. All new private
sector banks—HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Yes
Bank and now Kotak Mahindra Bank—have launched
similar products while India’s largest bank, State Bank of
India, a public sector bank, too has launched its own virtual
customer service assistant.
While organizations have been flirting with AI-powered
chatbots for close to three years, most of the commercial
launches have happened in the last 18 months.
In November 2016, Axis Bank launched its intelligent
chatbots, in partnership with Active.ai, a Singaporebased
start-up.
A month later, HDFC launched a Facebook Messenger
chatbot created in partnership with Indian start-up Niki.ai,
called OnChat.
In February 2017, ICICI Bank launched its own chatbot
iPal for handling customer queries. It has handled an
estimated 10 million queries.
Flipkart launched its conversational search during
that time.
In March last year, HDFC Bank launched a fullfledged
customer service chatbot called EVA (Electronic
Virtual Assistant).
Around the same time, YES Bank, in partnership with a
Silicon Valley start-up Payjo, launched its wallet services
through a chat-based financial assistant.
In September last year, State Bank of India, the largest
bank in India, launched SBI Intelligent Assistant (SIA),
which the bank says addresses queries the way a “bank
representative does.” The SBI chatbot also uses Payjo.
Most of the commercial
AI-powered chatbot
launches have happened
in the last 18 months
In November 2017, FirstCry, a leading bay and kids
products retailer, launched its own AI-based virtual
assistant Jenna.
The New Kids
In 2018 too, the story continues with more launches
ofcustomer service chatbots.
Yatra.com’s virtual assistant is called YUVA, short for
Yatra Universal Virtual Assistant. YUVA, available on
desktop, Android, IOS, Google Assistant and Facebook
Messenger, supports various Indian accents.
“The users can search and book flights, apply multiple
filters, rearrange options with different sort orders and
modify bookings. The user can provide the complete
information in a single sentence or talk to YUVA
and provide the relevant information in a form of a
communication,’ said the company in a release.
Its future versions will feature multi-lingual support
starting with Hindi followed by other important regional
languages and will be assisting the customers in hotel and
holiday bookings as well.
Kotak Mahindra Bank launched 'Keya', a voice bot
integrated with the bank’s phone banking helpline
and augments its existing IVR in Hindi and English.
It is developed using the technology from Nuance. It
uses automatic speech recognition, natural language
understanding and text-to-speech technology.
Startups such as Payjo, Niki.ai, Haptik are making news
with their solutions to enable consumer companies better
their customer service using AI-powered chatbots
April 2018 | CIO&LEADER
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