SBI Mutual Fund launches its first AI powered voice assistant

SBI Mutual Fund has announced the launch of its first AI-powered voice assistant with Google. The voice assistant can be currently accessed through any smart phone having Google Assistant or where the Google Assistant app has been downloaded, or any of the Google Home devices. The bot is designed to assist investors with information across different areas which includes getting basic product related information, locate the nearest branch, check their KYC status, use SIP calculator, receive a call back from customer care and retrieve account statements using a basic, user friendly voice interface. The voice assistant in due course will be developed and trained to help investors with transactions, portfolio valuations and other value-added services. The voice assistant was developed in partnership with AllinCall Research and Solutions Private Limited, a Mumbai based start-up firm.

The voice assistant was launched in the presence of Shri. Dinesh Kumar Khara (MD, State Bank of India), Mr. Fathi Jerfel (Dy. CEO, AMUNDI SA), Mr. Ashwani Bhatia (MD & CEO, SBI Funds Management Pvt Ltd), and Mr. Vikas Agnihotri, Country Director Sales, Google India.

Speaking on the launch, Ashwani Bhatia, MD & CEO, SBI Funds Management said, “We as a fund house constantly strive to introduce new services for our investors and technology-enabled services are the order of the day. I am happy to announce the launch of our voice assistant, a unique initiative in the mutual fund industry. We are encouraged by the rapid increase in the voice-based search by investors and growing adoption and acceptance of our YUVA web chat bot on our website. The voice assistant acts as another interface for investors to interact with the fund house, get basic information on their investments and do more’’

Vikas Agnihotri, Country Director Sales, Google India said “We are pleased to be working with SBI Mutual Fund and look forward to extending more engaging experiences to Google Home and the Assistant.’’

SBI Mutual Fund has launched YUVA (Your Virtual Assistant) in December 2017. The web chat bot was built with the aim to leverage the latest technologies and change in consumer preference in communication style to more web message and mobile chat-oriented mode which is less intrusive. The bot has handled over 2 million queries so far. The voice assistant is another step to provide for the growing voice-based search audiences.

The voice assistant uses the latest in AI and NLP to provide a simple conversational experience to understand user requirements and provide the optimal solution by fetching information from various sources. The bot in the future be able to assist investors with transactions as well. The voice assistant is currently available on Google Assistant platform and will soon be available on the Amazon Alexa platform as well.

Users can activate SBI MF Voice Assistant by saying to their Google Assistant “Ok Google Talk to SBI Mutual Fund’’ and link their Google account with SBI Mutual Fund for the first time.