First Financial Bank has grown its operations and attracted new customers through implementation of an AI-driven digital assistant.  

The $4.8 billion FFB teamed up with AI-driven tech provider Kasisto toward the end of 2022 to launch a digital assistant, according to a Feb. 22 case study by Kasisto. 

The digital assistant, Gabby, can help customers during onboarding, respond to their inquiries and help them with the loan application process, the case study stated.

The chatbot boasts a 90% resolution rate for customer inquiries and has helped FFB “to achieve significant growth in loans and opened CDs,” Chief Information and Operations Officer Brad Waldhoff told Bank Automation News. 

“We knew we wanted to lead with an AI-first service model that felt human-like and would not only be engaging but would also complete certain service requests to help ease some of the pressure on our existing contact center,” Waldhoff said. 

Gabby came pre-trained on Kasisto’s conversational AI database, which has been informed by more than 130 million banking-specific conversations that Kasisto has engaged in during the past decade, Waldhoff said. 

Since implementing the digital assistant, the bank has seen a: 

• 38% increase in personal loans;  
• 35% increase in mortgage originations; 
• 27% increase in newly opened certificates of deposit; and 
• 5% increase in vehicle loans. 

Rising demand for AI chatbots 

Kasisto has seen a growing interest in AI-driven chatbots within the community banking segment, Chief Executive and co-founder Zor Gorelov, told BAN. 

The launch of ChatGPT marked a foundational shift in the evolution of conversational AI, which has sent a message that FIs that haven’t been “actively creating a cross-channel conversational AI strategy and a budget, better get busy doing so now,” Gorelov said. 

Kasisto can provide chatbots to financial services through APIs with a low-code interface to bring the chatbot onboard easily, he said.  

Kasisto’s chatbot can be customized because “the digital assistant is much more than a piece of software; it’s typically the first animated entity that a user sees when they enter the digital channel,” he said.  

More than 60 financial institutions in 16 countries use Kasisto chatbots, including Westpac, JPMorgan, TD Bank and Standard Chartered, Gorelov said. 

The $2.3 billion Meriwest Credit Union, a Kasisto customer, said in a Nov. 21 report that it required 120 hours to bring the chatbot live on its platform and that it recorded a 30% increased profitability within four months. 

Gen-AI capabilities 

FFB is exploring Kasisto’s generative AI offerings that could assist Gabby with its ability to answer questions beyond the current scope of knowledge, Waldhoff said.  

“This capability would leverage our own internal documents, web content and other approved information sources to generate suggested answers and expand Gabby’s ability to serve customers and support our team,” he said. 

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