The advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI), including Generative AI (GenAI), has opened opportunities for banks to innovate with new business models and tools. In particular, through analysing huge amounts of data, it has enabled banks to provide elevated personalised customer experiences at scale.
This shift to AI-driven online services and personalised customer support promises much greater speed and efficiency, but it also stirs mixed feelings among customers. A majority of people want banks to offer personalised services and conversations, with 74 percent of respondents in our survey expecting them.
Although many Australians recognise and appreciate the presence of AI in banking, there's some concern about the lack of personal touch. The Publicis Sapient Customer Banking Report 2024 investigates this concern in detail, examining how banks can combine the advantages of AI with their ability to make interactions more personal.
Personalisation now an expectation
One interesting survey finding was that customers who visited a physical location of their bank in the past month were far more likely to expect a personalised service (83 percent) compared with those who hadn’t visited a branch in more than six months (62 percent). Customers appear to associate personalised services with physical channels, presenting both a challenge and an opportunity for banks to shift these expectations towards digital channels.
Customers also expressed frustration with AI's current inability to understand and resolve issues as a human would. This raises the question on how can banks set realistic expectations when it comes to AI, in terms of its benefits and its limitations?