Bianca Chan
Hi, everyone. I’m Bianca Chan and welcome to the Buzz from Bank Automation News, where we explore how automation is transforming the banking industry. This is our Weekly Wrap for what’s happening in the industry this week. And before beginning, I’d like to give a big thanks to BAN Advertisers advertiser MX, thank you so much for your support. I’m pleased to be joined by Loraine Lawson, associate editor at BAN. Welcome. It is February 26. And here are the base news items from our editorial team this past week. Loraine, I know you did some digging into some big patents related to automation. Tell us more about that.
Loraine Lawson
I was surprised to learn how busy banks are when it comes to filing patents. Bank of America it turns out topped its own record this last year. by filing 722 patents it received 444 patents after its applications 19% of them related to artificial intelligence and machine learning. They had a patent designed to improve customer experience by automating, automatically performing check validation and an automation pattern that will test source code changes during application development. But I have to say my my favorite is Capital One financial Corps, which grace which filed for 747 patents. I’m not sure how many they actually received but among their patents were a patent for systems and methods for facilitating transactions like they’ll pay through augmented reality and virtual reality headsets. Which isn’t that weird? Wouldn’t that be fun? So basically, you could, while you’re in your virtual reality world wearing your headset, you could look at for instance, a light bulb and click that you wanted to pay your electric bill. So automation for the user there. And then there was another patent that we use data from smart devices like you know, watches that we wear fitness devices, to train machine learning algorithms and improve context and conversational flow between the chat bot and the user interface. I’m not sure what my chat but to know how much I’ve walked today. But but very, very innovative stuff. And you’re working on an interesting feature for tomorrow, correct? Yeah, yeah.Bianca Chan
So it’s inside look into Wells Fargo’s automation evolution. More on that. But I did want to ask or bring up a point about the the patent around detecting code changes at Bank of America. That’s very interesting, because when you integrate more RPA or more coded software around automation, I know that’s kind of a typical pain point. Is that kind of what you’ve been seeing in your in your center of excellence work?
Loraine Lawson
Yes. So the goal of this would be to improve the software development process. That’s that’s what the stated goal of that would be. So yeah,Bianca Chan
that’s interesting. And it’s funny how Kaplan’s working on some augmented and virtual reality tools. It’s, it’s funny, because you wouldn’t really think, you know, there’s too much going on in that space and in banking. But I guess, with the whole embedded financial services, you know, the bank being where you are in your life versus you having to log on to the app or go into the branch. That’s kind of a trend we’ve seen, especially accelerated last year.Loraine Lawson
Really interesting. I guess soon, we’ll be in our virtual reality world, so we won’t have to worry about COVID. Yeah, that’s right.Bianca Chan
So yeah, a bit about my, my feature on Wells Fargo, takes a look at the the bank’s evolution of automation strategies. They really started the program in earnest and in 2018. And since then, their strategy has changed from this view of, I guess, focusing more on unattended bots to attended bots. So the idea there is, if you’re able to put attended bots, which are, of course, you know, robotics that require some sort of human assistance, they’re really meant or designed to optimize tasks taken by humans, versus unattended bots, which obviously have no human intervention and kind of just kind of operate on their own independently. But the thinking there is, if you’re able to put more attended bot technology in the hands of customer facing employees, you’re able to scale the I guess, ripple effect or impact of that automation has on the customer, way more than if you were to just replace a single employee or a single process with a single unattended bot.

Loraine Lawson
Oh, so I guess sort of virtual assistants for all of us.

Bianca Chan
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s the thing. Thinking. And so we also kind of talked about some different, the different ways that Wells Fargo will be investing in automation in the future years to come as well. So not just a backwards, backwards look, but looking at how the big focus now is on intelligent document capture. So, Paul Kraus, who’s the head of the Center of Excellence, there was talking about how, with more unintended unintended bots, the more reliance you are on data, because data is really the backbone of what all of the RPA in the code kind of relies on. And so more reliance on data means stronger data management and stronger Data, Data Tools. And so instead of having a human, basically look at a document, pull out the data and pull out the data points, and then input that into various applications, you’re starting to see bots do that with things like optical character recognition and motion capture engine. So that sort of thing. And then the fourth step of the maturity curve that that Wells Fargo is looking at is overlaying cognitive capabilities over top of their existing automation, you know, with attended unattended bots, and then also the intelligent document capture, to really, I guess, reach that goal of end to end automation. Most processes today that are automated, rely on some sort of human intervention when there’s some sort of decision to be made. And so the bank is looking more at artificial intelligence, machine learning natural language processing those types of tools to, I guess, one, make the make the automation more intelligent, but then also to integrate the different automations that live in the siloed legacy systems. So kind of an interesting, interesting look at what the bank has achieved in the past three years since starting their automation venture, but also kind of a glimpse into what to expect from them coming in the future.

Loraine Lawson
Well, that’s very forward looking. Speaking of forward looking, what do we look forward to next week?

Bianca Chan
Yeah, so next week, we’ll run our favorite movers and shakers column, which takes a look at staffing shuffles from the past month within banking and FinTech and we’ll also have our five questions with the new enterprise head of digital at Bank of America. So something to look forward there. And what about you learning?

Loraine Lawson
I have a podcast in the work with David McLaughlin, who is the CEO of quantum verse and he’s going to talk about how automating automating security,

Bianca Chan
interesting. Okay, I think that’s a good place to wrap up. Thank you so much, again, for participating and for visiting with us at the buzz. Please let us know how we’re doing at Bank automation news.com and of course on Twitter and LinkedIn and we’ll see you next time.

Bianca Chan
Hi, everyone. I’m Bianca Chan and welcome to the Buzz from Bank Automation News, where we explore how automation is transforming the banking industry. This is our Weekly Wrap for what’s happening in the industry this week. And before beginning, I’d like to give a big thanks to BAN Advertisers advertiser MX, thank you so much for your support. I’m pleased to be joined by Loraine Lawson, associate editor at BAN. Welcome. It is February 26. And here are the base news items from our editorial team this past week. Loraine, I know you did some digging into some big patents related to automation. Tell us more about that.
Loraine Lawson
I was surprised to learn how busy banks are when it comes to filing patents. Bank of America it turns out topped its own record this last year. by filing 722 patents it received 444 patents after its applications 19% of them related to artificial intelligence and machine learning. They had a patent designed to improve customer experience by automating, automatically performing check validation and an automation pattern that will test source code changes during application development. But I have to say my my favorite is Capital One financial Corps, which grace which filed for 747 patents. I’m not sure how many they actually received but among their patents were a patent for systems and methods for facilitating transactions like they’ll pay through augmented reality and virtual reality headsets. Which isn’t that weird? Wouldn’t that be fun? So basically, you could, while you’re in your virtual reality world wearing your headset, you could look at for instance, a light bulb and click that you wanted to pay your electric bill. So automation for the user there. And then there was another patent that we use data from smart devices like you know, watches that we wear fitness devices, to train machine learning algorithms and improve context and conversational flow between the chat bot and the user interface. I’m not sure what my chat but to know how much I’ve walked today. But but very, very innovative stuff. And you’re working on an interesting feature for tomorrow, correct? Yeah, yeah.Bianca Chan
So it’s inside look into Wells Fargo’s automation evolution. More on that. But I did want to ask or bring up a point about the the patent around detecting code changes at Bank of America. That’s very interesting, because when you integrate more RPA or more coded software around automation, I know that’s kind of a typical pain point. Is that kind of what you’ve been seeing in your in your center of excellence work?
Loraine Lawson
Yes. So the goal of this would be to improve the software development process. That’s that’s what the stated goal of that would be. So yeah,Bianca Chan
that’s interesting. And it’s funny how Kaplan’s working on some augmented and virtual reality tools. It’s, it’s funny, because you wouldn’t really think, you know, there’s too much going on in that space and in banking. But I guess, with the whole embedded financial services, you know, the bank being where you are in your life versus you having to log on to the app or go into the branch. That’s kind of a trend we’ve seen, especially accelerated last year.Loraine Lawson
Really interesting. I guess soon, we’ll be in our virtual reality world, so we won’t have to worry about COVID. Yeah, that’s right.Bianca Chan
So yeah, a bit about my, my feature on Wells Fargo, takes a look at the the bank’s evolution of automation strategies. They really started the program in earnest and in 2018. And since then, their strategy has changed from this view of, I guess, focusing more on unattended bots to attended bots. So the idea there is, if you’re able to put attended bots, which are, of course, you know, robotics that require some sort of human assistance, they’re really meant or designed to optimize tasks taken by humans, versus unattended bots, which obviously have no human intervention and kind of just kind of operate on their own independently. But the thinking there is, if you’re able to put more attended bot technology in the hands of customer facing employees, you’re able to scale the I guess, ripple effect or impact of that automation has on the customer, way more than if you were to just replace a single employee or a single process with a single unattended bot.

Loraine Lawson
Oh, so I guess sort of virtual assistants for all of us.

Bianca Chan
Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s the thing. Thinking. And so we also kind of talked about some different, the different ways that Wells Fargo will be investing in automation in the future years to come as well. So not just a backwards, backwards look, but looking at how the big focus now is on intelligent document capture. So, Paul Kraus, who’s the head of the Center of Excellence, there was talking about how, with more unintended unintended bots, the more reliance you are on data, because data is really the backbone of what all of the RPA in the code kind of relies on. And so more reliance on data means stronger data management and stronger Data, Data Tools. And so instead of having a human, basically look at a document, pull out the data and pull out the data points, and then input that into various applications, you’re starting to see bots do that with things like optical character recognition and motion capture engine. So that sort of thing. And then the fourth step of the maturity curve that that Wells Fargo is looking at is overlaying cognitive capabilities over top of their existing automation, you know, with attended unattended bots, and then also the intelligent document capture, to really, I guess, reach that goal of end to end automation. Most processes today that are automated, rely on some sort of human intervention when there’s some sort of decision to be made. And so the bank is looking more at artificial intelligence, machine learning natural language processing those types of tools to, I guess, one, make the make the automation more intelligent, but then also to integrate the different automations that live in the siloed legacy systems. So kind of an interesting, interesting look at what the bank has achieved in the past three years since starting their automation venture, but also kind of a glimpse into what to expect from them coming in the future.

Loraine Lawson
Well, that’s very forward looking. Speaking of forward looking, what do we look forward to next week?

Bianca Chan
Yeah, so next week, we’ll run our favorite movers and shakers column, which takes a look at staffing shuffles from the past month within banking and FinTech and we’ll also have our five questions with the new enterprise head of digital at Bank of America. So something to look forward there. And what about you learning?

Loraine Lawson
I have a podcast in the work with David McLaughlin, who is the CEO of quantum verse and he’s going to talk about how automating automating security,

Bianca Chan
interesting. Okay, I think that’s a good place to wrap up. Thank you so much, again, for participating and for visiting with us at the buzz. Please let us know how we’re doing at Bank automation news.com and of course on Twitter and LinkedIn and we’ll see you next time.