Most often financial institutions view leveraging an AI chatbot as a bonus to improve customer service; the CEO of TymeBank, Coenraad Jonker believes it is critical to their bank which has just 120 employees; it allows them to compete with institutions that have thousands or even tens of thousands of employees; he notes it is particularly beneficial in driving down costs, allowing them to better serve the underserved population; six million people use Bank of America’s Erica virtual assistant and Regions Bank is using IBM Watson to handle 22% of customer questions. Source