Bank of America’s virtual assistant Erica is a perfect example of how the bank is using “AI to make (BofA) better and make it better at scale,” according to Cathy Bessant, chief operations and technology officer at the bank.
“Many banks describe themselves as a technology company,” Bessant said at the American Bankers Association conference in New York, yesterday. “But really we use technology to provide customers solutions, and Erica enables us to provide a one-on-one customizable experience to the customer.”
Erica, which the bank launched in March, will now offer its 3.6 million users a new suite of features under the banner Erica Insights.
Among these features are Spend Path, a weekly snapshot of month-to-date spending; FICO Score Tracker, which tracks month-to-month changes to FICO scores; Subscription Monitor, which flags upcoming recurring charges; and Credit card bill reminders, an alert of upcoming BofA credit card payments that are due.
Now, while these features are not particularly novel to PFM apps like Credit Karma and Money Lion, it is unique for a larger bank. These new features are also indicative of the bank’s ongoing plans to add new and complex offerings to the virtual assistant throughout the year, just like Michelle Moore, the head of digital banking at BofA, mentioned last month.
Aditya Bhasin, head of Consumer, Small Business and Wealth Management Technology for BofA, said in a statement yesterday:
Our AI engine was built to evolve with our clients. Since the launch, we’ve integrated more than 200,000 different ways for clients to ask financial questions and expanded Erica’s conversational knowledge. We are introducing this new suite of more complex capabilities based on insights, behaviors and real-time feedback from millions of Erica users.
Since launching Erica in March, BofA amassed more than 3.6 million users and has assisted more than 12 million client requests to date. Of the Erica users, nearly 43% interact with it via text, 32% via tap and 25% with voice recognition.
During the third quarter ending September 30, Bank of America reported 36.2 million digital users and 25.9 million mobile users. The bank revealed that users logged into their accounts 1.4 billion times, made 137 million bill payments and deposited 33 million checks through the mobile app.






