Creating Trustworthy AI Assistants with Federal Bank and Riafy Technologies

Jitesh of Federal Bank and John of Riafy join your hosts this week to chat about what it takes to build and maintain a specialized digital banking representative. John starts the show with a history of Riafy, including how he and his co-founders chose this magically-inspired name. Jitesh walks us through Federal Bank's journey to a digitization strategy that started in 1996. With an eye for the future, the bank adopted mobile banking early on, supporting this feature along with international banking and more for 20 plus years. In 2016, Federal Bank started a campaign of research and development to strategize the continuing build-out of digital and mobile banking offerings. These efforts paid off, and now 88% of customer interactions occur in mobile or digital banking. Jitesh details the individual projects that make up their robust digital presence, like their revolutionary mobile banking signup that makes getting started easy. With the help of Riafy, Federal Bank has implemented beneficial tools like Feddy, the AI chat agent who offers 24/7 assistance to online customers. John and Jitesh tell us how Feddy was created to be not only helpful but friendly, acting as a mascot for the bank. We learn how Feddy was engineered, including the planning process for building the AI and how John and his team designed Feddy's training program. With the help of Google solutions like Dialogflow, the team created Feddy quickly and efficiently with a likable personality all his own. Overcoming initial consumer reservations, Federal Bank chose a slow rollout for Feddy. Through research into customer behaviors, Federal Bank planned to start small, keeping him external, and slowly introducing him to more banking areas as customer trust developed. In the future, Riafy and Federal Bank will continue to grow Feddy and foster a trusting relationship between Feddy and customers through advanced conversation, context principles, and more. John and Jitesh offer advice to other companies looking to incorporate AI into their digital platform.