| | December 20198CIOReviewIN MY OPINIONVirtual assistants have become commonplace in modern society, with the wide prevalence of Siri, Alexa, Google Home, and others. Many of us have come to rely on these assistants to tell us the daily weather, turn on the lights as we enter a room, and play our favorite podcasts. We've been using voice for thousands of years to interact with each other, so it's a natural evolution that we interact with our technology this way versus always tapping and clicking a screen. In addition to providing a more natural way to communicate, virtual assistants make it easier for customers to engage with a brand 24/7 from wherever they are. Whether it's from a mobile device or computer, through various apps and messaging platforms, or even through your remote control, virtual assistants make it easy for customers to find what they're looking for. They can often answer a wide range of questions, help consumers accomplish tasks, and provide relevant and personalized guidance. As the convergence of data analytics, APIs, and voice-controlled devices continues, there's opportunity for banking and other services to become seamlessly integrated with a consumer's daily life. Because of the huge amount of potential to help drive a transformative digital experience for our customers, Wells Fargo is working to build out natural language processing (NLP) capabilities on our own platform to give maximum flexibility and control over future capabilities and experiences. However, there are many third parties in the market offering products for companies who want to leverage virtual assistants but are not able to invest in the talent and resources to build and maintain their own platform. Humans Still MatterThough virtual assistants have been growing in sophistication and learning new skills, there are many situations where a customer may want or need to interact with a human, and the best customer experience requires a seamless hand-off from bot to human.By Brad Stewart, Head of NLP, AI Enterprise Solutions, Wells Fargo[NYSE:WFC]USING VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS TO DRIVE CONSISTENT,MULTI-CHANNEL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES
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