Chatbots Are Over Hyped: Emerj Report Shows Banks Overstate the Traction and ROI of Conversational Interfaces

Banking communications and press releases show conversational interfaces accounting for 38.87% of the AI use-cases at banks. In truth, most chatbots are pilot projects with little to no evidence of ROI; they’re touted in the press to make banks appear more modern and convenient to customers. Emerj’s AI in Banking Vendor Scorecard and Capability Map found conversational interface vendors score lowest in terms of funding and the AI talent they employ (2.4 out of 4.0).

The average customer service vendor in banking raises $16 million, far less than the average vendor in financing and loans ($49 million), fraud and cybersecurity ($48 million), and compliance ($44 million).

Companies raise more money when their products have traction, and conversational interface vendors make up only 5.5% of the total funding for AI vendors. Risk-related banking functions such as fraud are easier use-cases for AI than conversational interfaces that require advanced natural language processing algorithms. Machine learning has been used to great success in fraud detection for years. Banks might want to show off their chatbots, but that’s not where they’re investing money and they’re not what are delivering the highest ROI for banks.

SOURCE Emerj