For the first time in Spain, BBVA will offer AI-powered account and card management with its virtual assistant
BBVA has updated its personal virtual assistant Blue, integrated in its app, making it more personalized. Blue now has enhanced abilities to interact with customers using natural language, provide tailored information on their finances, and perform some of the most common account and card transactions. In parallel, BBVA created a co-pilot to facilitate the daily work of branch employees. With these initiatives, BBVA is moving forward with its strategy to put artificial intelligence (AI) at the disposal of its customers, and mark the beginning of a new stage in digital banking management. The roll-out of the new assistant Blue, with the AI Factory team participating in the technical aspects, will take place on February 20th in Spain and gradually reach all of the bank’s customers.
The new Blue kicks off with up to 150 queries and transactions available for customers, which translates into answering over 3,000 questions. Based on generative artificial intelligence, the tool aims to humanize BBVA’s digital channels, with much friendlier interactions, while greatly enhancing efficiency when answering customer questions, with more empathetic responses.
With a focus on understanding and customer experience in operational interactions, the virtual assistant improves user experience thanks to its large language models (LLM) interpretation and language generation capabilities. This enables much smoother conversation management, incorporating context, and taking into account previous interactions and the customer’s normal transactions. As a result, Blue is able to offer much more precise responses that align with each user’s specific circumstances.
Another unique feature is its ability to manage digressions in a conversation. If a user begins a query and needs something else in the middle of the interaction, Blue can adapt to this change without losing track of the conversation. At any point, the customer has the option to cancel the ongoing transaction or request assistance from a human agent.
Another key aspect of the design is that Blue works solely in the banking domain. Unlike other virtual assistants that can address a variety of topics, this assistant focuses exclusively on the customer’s information and transactions related to BBVA. To ensure its proper functioning, validations and guardrails were put in place that guarantee that all responses are aligned with the bank’s commercial, reputational and legal requirements.
Ensuring the highest levels of security and privacy was one of the most significant aspects in the development of Blue. BBVA has adopted measures to protect the personal and transactional information of its customers. The private information of each user is only used in the context of the active conversation, and is not stored or used outside of BBVA environments.
AI assistant for BBVA agents
BBVA has also added a new AI-based assistant to facilitate the work of its agents, while offering customers better service. The assistant is based on more than 30,000 references, which encompass an entire catalog of BBVA products and services that are updated on a daily basis. This new system is currently available to more than 100 agents, and serves as an essential tool to answer questions and requests for information, while providing agents quick and easy access to updated information on the entire BBVA ecosystem.
Its intuitive design makes it easy to integrate the assistant into daily operations, offering information that is adapted to the needs of each agent, and contributing to greater efficiency in management. This frees agents from spending more time on low-value operational tasks, and allows them to focus on providing customers quality time.