Regions Bank is tapping IBM's Watson AI technology in its call centres to help improve customer service and free up staffers to deal with more complex issues.
Watson Assistant is providing call centre employees with guidance on customer inquiries. The Banker Assist tool lets employees use AI-powered search when faced with a question to provide quicker call resolutions and more consistent answers.
In addition, some customers who call the bank interact directly with Watson, getting quick and consistent answers to routine questions, giving employees more time to tackle more challenging questions.
In the future, IBM says that Watson will be trained on other tasks, including analysing customers' tone to help determine when a customer should be transferred to a live agent.
Chris Brasher, head, bank operations, Regions Bank, says: "IBM Watson's automated intelligence is an important tool that allows us to operate more effectively by understanding customer needs."