Emirates NBD’s Digital Bank Liv. Launches Chatbot Powered by Kasisto’s KAI Banking

Kasisto, creators of KAI Banking, the leading Conversational AI platform for finance, and Liv., the largest digital bank in the UAE, operated and managed by Emirates NBD, a leading bank in the Middle East region, announced the launch of Olivia, Liv.’s Conversational AI chatbot.

Launched in 2017, Liv. is a mobile-only bank for UAE millennials centered around lifestyle, offering instant fully digital account opening, curated and personalized content, social media-based money transfers, customizable goal-based savings accounts and gamification to offer a differentiated experience for young customers. Built also by a team of millennials, Liv. is today the fastest growing bank in the UAE, acquiring more customers monthly than any other bank and adjudged the Best Digital Bank in the Middle East 2018 by Asian Banker.

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“Liv.’s goal of providing a differentiated and digital experience for a new generation of customers, empowering them in their daily lives, learning and adapting to their individual preferences, and providing a banking platform that is intuitive and simple to use matches perfectly with Kasisto’s vision to enable customers to make better financial decisions through human-like Conversational AI,” said Zor Gorelov, CEO and Co-Founder of Kasisto. “We’re thrilled that Liv. chose KAI, Kasisto’s state-of-the-art Conversational AI platform to create Olivia and power its conversational capabilities, as they progress in their journey to create a unique and innovative new bank.”

“With Liv., our goal is to create entirely new consumer experiences that are as natural and easy as a conversation and woven into everyday life. KAI’s agile AI platform with built-in banking expertise meant that we could quickly ‘train’ Olivia and customize her to reflect the bank’s brand and voice,” said Jayesh Patel, Head of Liv. “In its role as a financial buddy, Liv. helps customers better manage their finances, and we’re very excited that they now have Olivia to further that experience.”

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With the launch of Olivia, Liv. customers can get account information and insights on their spending as naturally as texting a friend. Olivia has a deep understanding of Liv.’s banking and lifestyle offerings. It can tell you things such as how much you spent on restaurants or travel last month, how to send money overseas or ways to block your card. Furthermore, Olivia can seamlessly hand over your conversation to the Liv. team if you ever needed to chat with a customer service agent. The deep AI technology stack, combined with Kasisto’s machine learning ensures the customer experience is always improving. KAI’s sophisticated self-service tools empower Liv. to easily add new features, products and channels.

To introduce Olivia to customers, Liv. launched an innovative teaser campaign across social media channels. The campaign was built around opening a job position for a new chatbot, accepting applications, conducting live interviews with the final five candidates, hiring Olivia – in an event that was watched live online by 60,000 customers – and subsequently enlisting the support of about 3,000 customers to mentor the new chatbot. As AI uses human interaction to constantly adapt, grow and learn, the mentorship program enabled Liv. customers to co-create and participate in Olivia’s development as well as help build positive affinity and engagement with the platform.

In addition to Liv., DBS Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and TD, among others, use KAI to create virtual assistants and chatbots to power intelligent, human-like conversations with customers that help in improving operational efficiencies, increase brand and customer loyalty, and lower costs.

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