Earlier this week, NatWest unveiled its partnership with IBM to enhance its chatbot technology, introducing Cora+.
In an exclusive discussion with John Duigenan, IBM’s global leader for the financial services sector, we explored this innovative product and the potential for future collaborations between IBM and NatWest.
Duigenan emphasized the longstanding relationship between IBM and NatWest, which previously included the development of a virtual assistant. As generative AI has gained traction and IBM has worked on its watsonx platform, NatWest has been examining how this advanced technology can improve client experiences and facilitate the development of virtual assistants, making them more comprehensive and capable of answering unforeseen inquiries with responses derived from reliable sources.
Unlike large language models such as ChatGPT, Cora+ is trained on verified resources, which may include the NatWest website, customer service manuals, or product descriptions. While the AI does not offer financial advice, it provides detailed information regarding NatWest’s specific financial products.
Duigenan also noted that IBM’s watsonx has the capability to explain the answers it generates, addressing growing concerns surrounding ethical AI usage.
From a design perspective, Duigenan underscored the challenge of anticipating every possible user question, ranging from inquiries about branch locations to personalized mortgage options. Designing a response mechanism for all potential questions can be quite complex and labor-intensive.
He remarked, “The true value of generative assistants lies in their ability to leverage a trusted body of knowledge alongside a large language model, enabling them to generate responses to questions posed by NatWest clients in ways we could not have specifically programmed or anticipated.”
Duigenan highlighted significant productivity gains, citing improvements of 30-40% compared to traditional customer service protocols.
Regarding the deployment of Cora+, Duigenan confirmed that the AI tool is already operational, stating: “The new assistant has been launched for a select group of users as determined by NatWest, with plans for broader rollout to follow. Naturally, watsonx is a continuously evolving platform, and we are regularly introducing new features. I am confident that NatWest will persist in integrating IBM’s new capabilities into their virtual assistants and additional technologies as they seek trusted AI solutions.”
Furthermore, IBM recently announced the expansion of its partnership with AWS, but the collaboration with NatWest marks the first public banking endeavor resulting in such an advanced product. Duigenan expressed optimism about the future of their partnership, stating, “I fully expect that our collaboration will strengthen, and we are already investigating additional areas for cooperation.”