Evolution of Chatbots in Finance

[00:00] Camila Durante:

Ok so if you have seen something there and you’d heard Freeda talk to you. You can’t because it’s not there. So what Freeda would say to you is that we’re going to be covering the introduction to chat boards, how digital assistants would function in order to cash and how digital assistants could assist customers. That’s a challenge and the future of digital assistance. So does everybody know what a bot is? You do. So the bot is short for robots. Way before I had in mind that robots would be just like the human personification that would take the world and everything and now we have those bots that are much more subtle and we can talk to them. Right?

[00:56] Camila Durante:

But if you think and if you look back on the movies and TV shows that we’ve seen that we had seen a lot of chatbots. So you would have seen Star Trek, right? Captain Kirk would be talking to his chatbot on the big TV in the spaceship asking for suggestions and strategies for the battles. Also for Marvel, you have Iron Man. I’m not too familiar with all the Marvel characters but he has like Jarvis and Friday, I think she is a woman. She would give instructions and suggestions and tell him about all the levels of the spacesuit thing and she’s very smart. Also, she would make jokes and everything and when he’s working and doing updates in the suits, she would make jokes with him. So she’s very intelligent. Also, there is a movie called Her. I haven’t seen it actually because I couldn’t find it online but there is also a guy who falls in love with a chatbot and artificial intelligence machine and I know you might all know Rosie from The Jetsons. Do you know the Jetsons? Yeah. So I wish I had Rosie at my place because she would do everything for me. She’s like the best. Okay. So how do we make the chatbox talk to us?

[02:35] Camila Durante:

You guys have probably used Siri or the Google Assistant or Cortana and everything. So we have to make sure that we have given them a full sentence with the main objects of what we want. So here I have who are my top 10 customers by open A/R amount. So you have like the users and then we have the entities which would be the subjects of what I want to have. So 10 customers and a total amount. Right? And then the intent. So my full objective would be the full sentence but with meaning. Okay. So there would be an evolution of chatbots over the year. The one I was studying was kind of a surprise for me because I didn’t know that in 1966, there would be Eliza. She was the first chatbot and she was made of scripts and it was very limited. But it’s nice to read about them because it’s very interesting. Well and then we had an evolution for intent recognition and it was in 1988 and it was with Jabberwocky. If you go online you can interact with him. It’s very interesting. And then we had more conversations and then consulted and digital assistant that we have Siri Google Now Alexa and Cortana and the messenger bots we have on some websites for example so how can how could we use the chatbots on our workplace so think about this is something we have to do now because we need to work with our I.T. teams.

[04:37] Camila Durante:

So basically they have to aggregate data then calculate the data and then perform actions. That’s how they basically would work in a very simple way. Okay. So using the example we talked before about who are my top 10 customers of open accounts who would do a search of my customer portfolio and then filter the top 10 customers and then present me the data that’s like less than one second. Okay. So I would get to work to open my computer and I would say if I’m a credit analyst for example how my day looks. And they would say, “Okay, you have three new customers credit reviews, one bankruptcy alert, and two periodic reviews and then I would continue”. So think about that instead of thinking and doing stuff you would just say stuff and the chatbot the computer would do everything for you. I saw a TV show recently that they didn’t have anything on the tables anything when they wanted something they would do like this. And the screen would appear and they would say, “Ok, show me not something cross-referenced with something”, and the things would just appear and they could also like to move with their hands and everything.

[06:10] Camila Durante:

So it is very interesting that digital systems help our accountants receivables. So we have billions invoicing credit management, collections management, deductions, and cash application. Can you imagine how we could use them for our benefit? Does anyone have anything like to think about something to say? No? Ok. So, for example, I would say are there any disputes against invoices for ABC Products and Freeda would tell me. There are four invoices that ABC product has disputed here. There are relevant documents supporting their claim and their features and the digital forms would appear. It wouldn’t be restricted to perform actions but also filling out forms. So like applying the deduction code as promotion for invoices A, B, and C, and Freeda would say, “Okay, deduction code promotion has been applied to the invoices, apply deduction code as a coupon for invoices A, B, and C”. Coupon code has been applied to the invoices. I have a few examples of how digital assistance could help customers. So, for example, knowing the status of the credit review process. So I would log in the customer would log in our website and the chatbot would appear and say I would like to know how my credit review process is going and Freeda or whatever would say it’s under advisement or it’s under process. And then improving the payment experience. I find this kind of difficult because like I said, you need to get used to using your voice instead of doing stuff.

[08:25] Camila Durante:

So I’ll give you an example. I have Google home at home and I have Alexa. My room is fully automated. So I have trouble reaching the wall to turn on and off the lights but now it’s like it’s normal. So I just get in the room and say, “Alexa turn on the lights. Alexa I’m going to sleep”, and she starts playing my meditation playlist. This is something we still need to get used to. Highradius has a chatbox with an ulterior motive. We have to go more into technology. And another example would be improving the payment experience because we would say I want to pay invoices A, B and C. Freeda would say, “Okay how would you like to pay?” I’d like to use my credit card or maybe the credit card would be starred or anything so you can imagine. We talked before about simplifying the process of raising disputes, the customer would say everything. But again I think we are a little far from that because we would have to be precise for deductions and for payments because there is no margin for errors. So this is something we really need to be careful with, but we can implement the easy stuff like knowing payment terms and dates and information about rate promotions. We just have to be careful with more sensitive information. So what would be the future of the chatbots?

[10:09] Camila Durante:

We already interact with the chatbots and everything but we want something more, maybe we would have like an actually personified chatbot with like a human face and everything and they would actually anticipate our needs. So I would say something and the chatbot would come with suggestions, also not just answering back. What I’m trying to say is that when I am asking, he would inform me that I had paid those invoices. And also inform me that I have three more invoices to do next week and ask if I would like to pay them ahead. No, but I would like to postpone them for ten more days like this and the system would do everything for me.

[11:05] Camila Durante:

So that’s what we should look for when we’re thinking about the chatbots. First, we have to be sure that we are able to give the customer and give our employees good tools. Right? And they have to work with us, not just for us. So it’s something we’re going to be complementing ourselves with the chatbots. So it is not that they are going to do all the work for us. I’ll give you another example, you know what we’re doing using the Highradius tools and there’s always a percentage that falls under that didn’t match. Right? So we could ask the chatbots to bring all the open invoices and all the open deductions, cross-reference with the trade numbers and everything. This is something humans would not do for us so we wouldn’t be losing our jobs.

[12:13] Camila Durante:

Right and wish you would be using the help of the chatbot. But not only they’re the most important and challenging thing would be for the customers because we can’t accept errors there should be very sensitive. And one of the great things, of course, but this is nothing new that they are able to learn with us. So like I said, the future of chatbots you would be suggesting that’s because they are always learning with us. With artificial intelligence and machine learning, they keep learning and become smarter.

[13:07] Anchor:

Thank you so much. Round of applause. She was amazing.