Axis Bank joins chatbot club with AI-powered assistant

Axis Bank is the latest Indian lender to jump on the conversational banking bandwagon, with the private sector bank announcing the launch of a virtual assistant.

The assistant, called Axis Aha, is based on artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms.

The bank said that the chatbot can provide relevant and contextual responses to customer queries. It can also help execute transactions in the chat window itself.

"Customers can initiate transactions either through voice or chat," said Praveen Bhatt, head of digital banking and customer experience at Axis Bank.

Bhatt said that Aha is capable of performing diverse actions such as fund transfer, bill payments, recharges and can also manage card limits, block credit and debit cards, among other tasks. 

"The voice and chat interface also provides customers an opportunity to query on any of his banking needs," he added.

However, the chatbot is currently only available on the home page of the bank's website and not on its mobile apps. 

With the chatbot, Axis Bank has joined its peers in adopting and deploying emerging technologies to improve customer experiences. 

HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank all have similar bot services across a variety of platforms.

In a recent interaction with TechCircle, HDFC Bank’s chief digital officer Nitin Chugh had said that the private lender was using AI-enabled bot services.

The bank has developed two chatbots with help from startups such as Niki.ai and Senseforth Technologies to help customers communicate more easily with the bank. One such bot is also available on the Facebook Messenger platform. 

The private lender also uses a digital assistant named EVA and a humanoid called IRA. EVA– available on Amazon Alexa and Echo devices, and Google Assistant on Google Home and Android smartphones – can also answer questions for customers.

Similarly, Kotak Mahindra Bank, too, has an AI-enabled digital chatbot named Keya to reduce call time at customer care centres.