Setting a timer for a 5½ minute egg, playing your favourite playlist or calling up the recipe idea of the day - virtual assistants like Alexa or Siri are not only taking over more and more tasks in everyday life on demand. The world of work is also increasingly being changed by virtual assistants. ROSS is one of the first virtual assistant for law firms. The AI lawyer helps his human colleagues with research, searches databases for precedents or suitable legal texts.

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The first banks are also already working with robo-advisers. The asset management market that can be managed automatically by them is currently estimated at 20 billion euros. In Banks and insurance companies there are numerous use cases for virtual assistants and thus at the same time the opportunity to open up areas of application for artificial intelligence (AI).

 Reading tip: In this article, we look at the question of the extent to which Chatbots and Artificial Intelligence are related.

Virtual assistants as artificial coworkers

Anyone interested in using virtual assistants should be aware that there are two different types of virtual assistants:

• The first type is for the internal use and is intended, for example, to open up knowledge databases.
• The second type occupies the Interface between company and end customer.

These two types serve different purposes and can be equipped with different capabilities accordingly. The development of knowledge databases, for example, can pursue the goal of, to increase the quality of counselling. The advisors can thus be provided with all the necessary information quickly and effectively. If a certain insurance or financial product is to be sold, the advisor can have his or her own decisions reviewed by a virtual assistant even during the counselling session.

Virtual assistants who work in Direct contact with customers fulfil the purpose of categorising the queries in advance and independently completing certain simple queries whose answers can be standardised.

Reading tip: In this text we explain how to Digital assistants can be successfully integrated into companies.

Asset management as an area of application for virtual assistants

One of the most important areas of application is asset management - at the same time, this example illustrates the two different areas of application of virtual assistants. Individual tasks and processes in the context of asset management can be automated or improved through the use of artificial intelligence. This can effectively reduce costs and increase returns. This makes it possible to offer bank customers competitive products, especially in times of low interest rates.

Virtual assistants can also be used in asset management at the interface between banks and clients, where they can provide information or forward client enquiries directly to the right advisor. The Customer Experience This improves the customer experience and makes the customer journey smoother.

Virtual assistants as insurance brokers

The use of AI in insurance brings great benefits to the industry in a wide variety of areas. With the use of virtual assistants for advisors, the sale of extensive policies and complex financial products can be simplified. For example, virtual assistants can also be used in the Connected Car where they can offer customers individual policies even for short journeys.

Since Car-Sharing is part of the Sharing Economy is becoming more and more important, the demand for new insurance models is also increasing in this area. The three central advantages of virtual assistants are:

• They are available around the clock.
• You can explain and conclude a policy in dialogue form.
• If damage occurs, they can be used directly for settlement.

Virtual assistants in customer communication

According to an Accenture study, many clients prefer the Direct contact with people. Virtual assistants for customer communication should therefore be understood as an offer to customers and not as a replacement for employees in companies. Without contradicting this, another Accenture study The survey revealed that customers explicitly want robot-assisted advice in banks and insurance companies.

Virtual assistants bring advantages to both customers and employees of banks and insurance companies in many ways. In this way, companies can be reached around the clock - even outside official business hours. Customers can approach a company with their concerns at any time. Simpler enquiries can be virtual assistants answer immediately and pre-sort and prioritise more complex requests directly. The Increases satisfaction of customers and makes the Service more efficient.

The opportunity: using AI and tapping into knowledge bases

The use of virtual assistants offers numerous opportunities for banks and insurance companies. On the one hand, data silos within the organisations can be avoided or dismantled because the data located there must be made accessible to the virtual assistants. In this way, the conditions are also created that lead to Banks and insurance companies benefit from AI-based analytics can. This improves the quality of counselling because relevant knowledge databases can be accessed and thus made easily available.

Last but not least, virtual assistants improve the customer experience and increase customer satisfaction because customers benefit from both cheaper offers, new business models and at the same time from Increased quality of counselling benefit.