Build banking for the Now! generation with GenAI

My school-age son recently took a math test. An enthusiastic student, he wanted to know how he’d done, but the teacher said it would take several days to grade the paper test.

He asked me why technology couldn’t make the results instant – like so many things are these days. Of course, my generation all hated to wait, but did we expect instant gratification? No. Today’s consumers prefer everything fast. What’s more, tomorrow’s consumers won’t want to wait for anything – not for a transaction to process or even to get financial advice.

Banks must take note, and start delivering the real-time service people increasingly expect. If not, current customers will shift to competitors who can do better – and the next generation may avoid traditional banks entirely. Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has the potential to deliver sophisticated banking experiences in real time using natural language. There are myriad use cases for GenAI in banking, and odds are, you’ve thought of a few. But is the technology ready? In many cases – it is.

Empowering customers and bypassing risks

If you’ve spent time exploring GenAI, you’ve noticed that it’s both impressive and imperfect. Everyone wants to harness the potential and avoid the downsides. GenAI uses learned models to generate new content, like text and images. It learns from vast data sets. Training helps GenAI deliver on-target outputs that pull from the data it’s “learned,” mimicking our ability to understand information. It can synthesize a massive amount of structured and unstructured data at breakneck speed. The downside? Sometimes the outputs are inaccurate or strange.

Banks need the speed and the scale. No bank wants to experiment with strange – much less, inaccurate – customer experiences. That’s leading many banks to position GenAI as a back-office tool, with people (like service agents) vetting outputs. It’s a conservative approach that could mean falling behind competitors that use GenAI to drive potentially game-changing advances in customer experience.

To get the most out of GenAI now, you need a framework that controls outputs. You deploy GenAI with guardrails to support accuracy and context. Compliance is just as critical. You must ensure compliance with privacy and other regulations around data use. On the front end, you focus on engagement that empowers customers to save time and further financial goals. Back-end use cases boost efficiency for your people while enabling new levels of personalization for customers. Let’s consider a few GenAI-powered scenarios.

Business-first banking

With business-first banking, you use data to connect business customers to relevant content and products. Data drives personalization so busy business owners get the right offer at the right time. AI helps simplify underwriting so that it’s easier to serve smaller businesses more quickly. GenAI takes business-first banking to the next level. Smart analytics can help pinpoint and predict a need in advance, and GenAI guides the interaction. Here’s a scenario: AI spots the likelihood of a business owner’s end-of-the-month cash-flow shortfall and suggests one of your products as a solution. A GenAI-powered interface walks the customer through viable options.

You can also create GenAI-enabled tools designed to add value for business customers. Imagine a tool that flags non-standard terms and conditions in contracts that small business owners need to review. This would free up time for owners to devote to other business aspects that require specifically human insight and ability.

Customer-first banking

Many banks are working to build experiences around a holistic view of customers, as opposed to the now-dated account-centered view. To do that, you need to understand your customers’ financial stories. You’ve got the data, and GenAI can help you understand it. That means your people can start customer interactions by reviewing an automatically generated snapshot of a customer’s needs. But that’s just the beginning. GenAI can play the role of financial coach, concierge, and cheerleader – 24/7.

Say a customer wants to save for a new iPhone. Using natural language, GenAI can help the customer calculate how much to save each month to reach the goal. It can even suggest alternatives, such as buy now, pay later options. Families saving for new homes can have similar conversational interactions about down payments, loan types, preapprovals, and more. You might think calculators already do that – and they do. But calculators lack the ease and human touch of natural language. Calculators also can’t make suggestions based on a broader view of your financial habits – like skip the afternoon latté to get the iPhone sooner. Or to propose a customer opens a High Yield Savings Account instead of keeping a large balance in her checking – helping your customer builds savings while she sleeps.

Your bank can use GenAI to deliver hyperpersonalized communication and offers at speed. It’s not unusual for banks (especially credit unions and community banks) to reach out to customers who may have been impacted by something like a major weather event or wildfire. GenAI can refine that type of outreach to extend to smaller incidents that impact only one neighborhood. GenAI identifies potential incidents, crafts messages, and helps customers find any needed banking products that match their situation.

Evolve with GenAI

At Amdocs, we’re focused on helping banks deploy game-changing GenAI use cases today – and create a foundation for tomorrow. Our AI framework is engineered for highly regulated businesses, and our partnership with Microsoft, a GenAI leader, connects us to cutting-edge use cases from across industries. Are you ready to deliver the just-for-me banking (and instant gratification) that customers want? Talk to us about how your bank can harness GenAI to put customers first in new ways.