Canadian bank CIBC is already developing a mobile interface for its newly launched virtual assistant that debuted last week.

The $604 billion dollar bank is leveraging technology from IBM Watson to power its conversational AI-based chatbot, which can perform banking transactions in addition to answering customers’ banking questions. The chatbot is currently available to customers with personal bank accounts, but CIBC is exploring other verticals for chatbot deployment, both across client segments and internally among employees, Aayaz Pira, senior vice president of digital banking and innovation at CIBC, told Bank Innovation. CIBC has 10 million clients and about 44,000 employees, according to the company.

In the coming weeks and months, Toronto-based CIBC will begin testing and iterating how clients interact on the mobile app and how to best meet those needs on mobile as the bank works toward a 2021 rollout of the mobile capability. IBM Watson clients who expand to various platforms must also consider the different interface and interactions between web and mobile, and design-icon placement, as well as how the virtual assistant will interact with other mobile banking components, said Charbel Safadi, IBM Canada’s financial services leader.

IBM provides cloud computing services to 42 of the top 50 Fortune 500 banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citigroup, and works with 97 of the top 100 global banks by asset size, according to the company.

CIBC’s chatbot can perform transactional banking tasks such as instant money transfers, paying and scheduling bills and answering both generic and account-specific questions, like credit card payment due dates and current foreign exchange rates. The chatbot is connected to the bank’s various systems through API integrations, Safadi told BI, and is currently available on the web. The AI virtual assistant also operates on an omnichannel architecture, so it can connect customers to contact center agents directly in the chat.

Demand for chatbot technology has grown significantly during the pandemic, according to IBM. In the current digital environment, scaling customer service with conversational AI and automation has gained significant traction, Safadi said. And as adoption ramps up, an emerging trend among financial institutions is the deployment of AI-backed chatbots internally for employee use, affording enterprise scalability and access to information, he added.