Rise of the robot: How banks are using artificial intelligence upfront and behind the scenes

At a Calgary branch of ATB Financial, one of the bank's latest recruits educates customers about financial literacy, plays music, challenges them to an impromptu dance-off and, naturally, takes a selfie. Pepper, the new hire, doesn't have the most sophisticated skill set at this point -- for one thing, she can't make financial transactions -- but she's made a big leap forward in becoming the robot in customer service in Canadian banking. At some point, Pepper, developed by SoftBank Robotics Corp., could be programmed to do more complicated tasks. But for now, Edmonton-based ATB Financial is more interested in gauging how people react and figure out which customer situations the robot best fits in. "This isn't … the world's going to be run by robots or something like that," chief executive Dave Mowat said.