Wouldn’t it be great to have a personal assistant to help you with all your insurance needs. SPIXII is exactly this - the chatbot that wants to make your customer service experience easier, more efficient, and more human. The word ‘insurance’ is enough to put most people off, evoking painful memories of long forms, waiting on hold listening to terrible lift music, and eventually being oversold on a policy you don’t really need.

SPIXII’s goal is to ‘build a bridge between customers and insurers’ through the implementation of an AI powered chatbot.

We all know that chatbots have their issues, but what happens when the assistant is built specifically for insurance needs, rather than to handle a broad range of tasks - it becomes more efficient and accurate. SPIXII’s bot aims to deliver a great personal customer service, enhance customer loyalty, and most importantly, replace form filling. The chatbot is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), is fully compliant, and can speak all existing languages. This makes it ideal for insurance companies legacy mainframe systems, and to use it all that’s required is to add three lines of non-invasive code.

At the AI Assistant Summit in London this September 21 & 22, Alberto Chierici, Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder of SPIXII, will discuss how they are working to make the best dialogue management solution for insurance companies. Alberto will also share some of his experiences in designing the chatbot and stress the importance of good design practices for ‘crafting remarkable customer experiences with digital agents’.

Over the coming years, AI will empower financial companies to create increasingly personalised services for their customers. With a better understanding of their customers, they'll be able to deliver more and more flexible products, built around their customer.

Good and bad bots are really a thing, and Alberto explains that in order to create a ‘good’ bot it must have a level of emotional intelligence supported by the AI behind the product.

SPIXII was born by ‘talking to people all over London about insurance. [They] realized that many people's first reaction to buying an insurance product was to text a friend or family member who knew more about insurance and finance.’ The solution? - to create your very own personal assistant with AI that helps the insurer to ‘personalize their customer service, which makes insurance simple, personal and accessible for the customer. For the insurer, it helps them better understand their customer, improve customer loyalty and provide an innovative customer service, in line with current customer expectations.’

As the general public become accustomed to chatbots and AI assistants, their expectations increase and users now expect information to be instantly available at their fingertips - no one wants to wait on hold, or call during opening hours, it’s inconvenient. Alberto explained that ‘insurance companies and retail banks have recognized this and pushed digital transformation onto the agenda. It's more important than ever that the financial industry delivers a seamless, personal and efficient customer service.’

Users are influenced by the media’s representation of AI, and there are misunderstandings on what is achievable entangled with concerns about robots achieving world domination. Alberto explained that the ‘next generation of AI assistants must take into account the importance of data privacy and protection. This will almost certainly be affected by the introduction of GDPR next year, but it's vital to protect customer data with bank-level security. Another challenge will be developing the next generation of AI assistants to assist, not replace, people in the workplace. Chatbots, for instance, can be used to take the pressure off customer service teams. There should always be a place for people if we are to truly put the human back into insurance.