Meet 'Watson' ANZ's new supercomputer customer service assistant.
ANZ has recruited the services of the supercomputer known as Watson, to assist bank account customers with queries regarding wealth management, reports Fairfax Media.
The IBM owned supercomputer will be employed to work as a virtual customer service assistant in the banks wealth management division. Watson works by assessing a problem and then selecting the most relevant solutions from a self generated cloud of answers from every bit of information. Watson has the ability to give answers to conversational style questions and although it may not always be correct, it has the ability to learn from interactions. According to IBM, its system performance has already increased by 240 percent.
The supercomputer was originally built to answer questions on the hit T.V. show 'Jeopardy' in 2011. During the show Watson was not connected to the internet but had access to its own 200 million pages of structured and unstructured data, including the full text of Wikipedia. Although Watson struggled in solving short end clues with few words, it went on to defeat the shows two greatest champions.
The computer is now expected to be used by ANZ in online chats, email correspondence smartphone app and SMS as 'Ask Watson' feature. According to chief executive of ANZ wealth, Joyce Phillips, Watson could be a groundbreaking solution to giving assessments during market fluctuations and offer solutions to the everyday changing needs of customers.
"we are pleased to explore with IBM how Watson could enable smarter, faster financial recommendations - yielding a customer experience that is simple, personalised and steeped in data-informed insights," Ms Phillips said.
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