Industry context
Investment banks posted record revenues in 2020 with pandemic-triggered volatility and massive financial stimulus from central banks. This trend continued through 2021, and investment banks continued their growth journey, benefiting from the market volatility and increased client activity. According to Coalition Greenwich, the total investment banking revenue surged 10% year-on-year to $115.3 billion in H1 2021.
Investment banks continue to be challenged by cost pressures, regulatory compliance, and increasing competition. In revving up their digital transformation pace, most investment banks are focusing on digital client engagement models, automation, platform modernization, cloud adoption, ecosystem play, and analytics. Investment banks are also embracing digital assistants powered by cognitive technologies to offer self-service capabilities to customers and employees, enrich the customer experience, improve operational efficiency, ensure regulatory compliance, and reduce costs.
What is a digital assistant?
A digital assistant is a 24X7 virtual assistant designed to aid users in finding answers to their queries and automate activities through cognitive technologies. Digital assistants support two types of conversations – first, a request-response conversation mode initiated by the user, and second, alerts or push notifications. A user-initiated conversational digital assistant simulates human-like conversations with the user and supports both voice and text-based conversations.
Crowded with several conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, the global intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) market is anticipated to expand at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.5% from 2021 to 2028 and is expected to reach $51.9 billion by 2028, according to Grand View Research.
