Bradesco expects artificial intelligence will drive a significant increase in sales via digital channels.Bradesco Brazil's second-largest private bank Bradesco will ramp up its efforts around artificial intelligence (AI) to boost sales, improve customer experience and reduce operating costs in 2019. The bank, which has a portfolio of over 71 million customers, has been working on a platform dubbed Bradesco Artificial Intelligence (BIA) over the last four years. BIA's capabilities translate into an improved customer experience across the bank's digital channels - especially the app, which today accounts for 60% of customer interactions with the bank. Currently, 90% of the bank's services are already available via the app, but sales made via mobile currently represents about 20-30% of the overall business volume. We want to increase sales in that channel," says Mauricio Minas, executive vice president at the bank, adding that the goal is to increase mobile sales to 50% this year. "A few years ago we invested in the idea that BIA would be the engine of a substantial increase in Bradesco's customer value perception.

Bradesco expects artificial intelligence will drive a significant increase in sales via digital channels.Bradesco Brazil's second-largest private bank Bradesco will ramp up its efforts around artificial intelligence (AI) to boost sales, improve customer experience and reduce operating costs in 2019. The bank, which has a portfolio of over 71 million customers, has been working on a platform dubbed Bradesco Artificial Intelligence (BIA) over the last four years. BIA's capabilities translate into an improved customer experience across the bank's digital channels – especially the app, which today accounts for 60% of customer interactions with the bank. Currently, 90% of the bank's services are already available via the app, but sales made via mobile currently represents about 20-30% of the overall business volume. We want to increase sales in that channel," says Mauricio Minas, executive vice president at the bank, adding that the goal is to increase mobile sales to 50% this year. "A few years ago we invested in the idea that BIA would be the engine of a substantial increase in Bradesco's customer value perception.

Banco Bradesco is seeing returns on the investments it has made in artificial intelligence, with employees and clients of the bank using the service 33 million times in the first half, it reported on Thursday. "Bradesco Inteligência Artificial" is based on IBM's Watson and responds to questions about products and services using natural language capabilities. It is not clear what growth rate this represents, as Bradesco has not reported results from its AI products previously. Bradesco spent BRL6 billion ($1.6 billion) on IT investments last year. As well as the AI capabilities, that money also went to improved online services, research into blockchain technology, and the bank's open innovation program which involves innovation labs and partnerships with startups.