Talking Conversational AI and Fintech with Benzinga

Artificial intelligence still gives off Futurama vibes for some people. But the fact is that AI is found in almost all aspects of society nowadays. From chatbots on business sites to our voice assistants, conversational AI, in particular, is almost omnipresent.

This opens an entirely new market for use. Think about this: 89% of people with some type of voice assistant or AI tech talk to and use their voice assistant every single day. In 2017, 20% of Internet searches were through this technology with that number estimated to jump to more than half within the next year.

But there’s more to conversational AI than Siri and Alexa. In fact, it’s actually important to have other platform options that cater to various consumers and industries.

In this post, we’re going over this topic in a bit more detail. We’ll also talk about our platform and how it’s going to have a big impact on fintech as we know it.

Why It’s Important to Have Other Platform Options Besides Those

With big players like Google, Apple, and Amazon utilizing and making conversational AI mainstream, why would we need other platforms? If three of the biggest companies in the world are doing it, what can other platforms offer?

We can sum it up in three words: freely available knowledge.

When conversational AI was first introduced by these big companies, the knowledge was kept under lock and key. Nobody really had access to this knowledge besides them.

Opening up and democratizing this type of AI technology would have a massive impact on every industry, including fintech. Having open sourced info and widely (and freely) available information on this AI and these personal assistants could help small and large businesses alike thrive in a technology driven environment.

Enter Clinc

And that’s exactly how and why our company Clinc was born. In 2015, we published a research paper about tech called Serious (Apple wasn’t thrilled with that title…). The purpose of this was to create the world’s first fully open source personal assistant.

After this research was published, there was an explosion of interest from all kinds of industries. Medical, law enforcement, financial, etc.

Everyone wanted us to commercialize this technology so it could be applied to a number of different applications in a way that AI systems like Siri and Alexa couldn’t.

So, Clinc was born with the mission to use conversational AI to enable the access to knowledge across all types of commercial, industrial, business, and financial applications. The goal is to provide people more information than they would have without this type of technology.

It doesn’t limit businesses (or individuals) who aren’t giant, international corporations. It gives people everywhere access to conversational AI technology and the knowledge it can bring.

Why Is Clinc so Important for the Future of Conversational AI and Fintech?

This type of technology can connect people more closely to their finances and their financial understanding.

It can complete tasks like:

• Pattern analysis
• Data collection and analysis
• Financial understanding
• Answering financial questions
• Reporting transactions

It does this along with other things that would normally take even the most financially literate person days or weeks to process easier and faster. It also makes the information readily available to bankers and everyday people alike.

This completely changes the game.

Imagine if that 89 % of people who talked to their personal assistants every day were using that technology to become more financially responsible. What if those millions of people had direct and understandable access to their finances?

This improves everyone’s quality of life. People will be more financially responsible and aware of one’s own financial story instead of having to leave everything in the hands of banks and financial professionals. Conversational AI like Clinc helps you become your own financial professional.

This technology can easily fit into many industries and cater to specific problems and experiences. This means it’s able to solve problems and create experiences that couldn’t be solved in this way before.

How Conversational AI and Clinc Are Changing Fintech and Traditional Financial Institutions

Clinc technology is set up to:

• Understand how we talk
• Solve problems
• Answer questions
• Provide us the solutions to those problems/questions quickly and easily

That’s a big ask for technology that most people know gives us directions to “Nick Donald’s” instead of “McDonald’s” when we ask.

Clinc crowdsourced data and information to truly understand how we speak to conversational AI.

For example, think about how you type something into a search engine asking a question about how loans work. It’s different from how you would ask a banker or a friend the same question, isn’t it?

Clinc then uses complex algorithms and machine learning in order to comprehend what people are asking. It’s made to design an experience that allows you to talk to this tech as you would talk to a real person.

Then, you can easily ask it questions related to these things. Clinc wants to set up an AI experience that allows people to ask things they want to know. Not only that, but they’ll also get back answers they need without the confusion or apprehension that people normally experience using AI.

Clinc Applications

Clinc can support and give information regarding balance, income, and transaction reporting, as well as questions like “when did I last get paid?” and “how much money can I spend?”.

What’s exciting is these features can be integrated into a variety of financial institutions’ technology, including apps. It can also be designed for particular problem-solving experiences.

The most exciting and innovative thing about this technology is how free you can be with the whole experience. You’re probably used to having to follow strict scripts with robots on the phone, shouting the same words over and over to be understood, etc.

What Clinc is doing is making this tech more accessible, easier to use, and more applicable to all types of financial institutions, people, and industries. This makes it easy to incorporate into many applications in fintech (like mobile banking or apps, for example) without the headache and frustration consumers are used to with conversational technology.

Clinc is constantly evolving and innovating the technology to fit brand new experiences all over fintech. Even in mostly traditional financial institutions like USAA, US Bank, and Barclays (to name just a few of our clients), it’s amazing how Clinc’s tech can evolve and become integrated into those areas in a matter of days.

The available knowledge and conversational AI tech provided by Clinc means that it’s not limited or licensed by large companies. It can be used to solve problems for everyday consumers to banking executives alike.

This opens up huge possibilities for the future that might not be so far off from the Futurama image you have in your mind…

Final Thoughts

Want to learn more about Clinc and how we’re changing the game with conversational AI and fintech? Check out Benzinga’s latest podcast where we spoke more in detail with another innovative name in fintech.