The strategic impact of AI powered Digital Humans in business

Executive summary

Mastercard is pioneering the integration of AI-powered Digital Humans to revolutionize customer interactions and digital experiences. These lifelike virtual assistants mimic human behavior, leveraging technologies like generative AI and natural language processing to provide personalized and immersive experiences. Mastercard has successfully implemented Digital Humans in key regions, including partnerships with leading banks in Egypt, UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

Digital Humans offer a broad spectrum of applications, including managing customer inquiries, streamlining customer onboarding, enhancing sales and cross-selling through personalized product recommendations, and providing interactive training for sales teams. They also serve as a game-changer in sales management by supporting client meetings and automating post-meeting processes.    Additionally, Digital Humans automate back-office tasks, proactively resolve complex customer issues, and provide multi-channel support via text, voice, and video.   

Importantly, Digital Humans are designed to augment human capabilities. They enhance decision-making processes by providing data-driven insights and support, allowing humans to focus on strategic and complex tasks. This collaboration between humans and AI fosters a superior customer experience while driving operational efficiency and innovation.

By embracing Digital Humans, Mastercard and its partners are setting a new standard for innovation and efficiency, enhancing customer experiences while driving operational excellence across regions.

Introduction

In recent years, the financial services industry has seen a significant shift towards digital transformation, with a focus on enhancing customer experiences through innovative technologies. Mastercard, a global leader in Technology, has been at the forefront of this transformation by leveraging advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) to introduce cutting-edge solutions. One such innovation is the integration of AI-powered Digital Humans, which are revolutionizing customer interactions and digital experiences.

What are digital humans

Digital humans are advanced avatars designed to speak and interact like real humans. These AI-powered entities are designed to mimic human appearance, behavior, and communication patterns, utilizing technologies such as generative AI, natural language processing, and facial recognition. They are capable of providing personalized and immersive experiences, making them an ideal tool for enhancing customer service in various sectors, including banking.

Mastercard digital human value-driven implementations

Mastercard has partnered with a leading financial institution in Egypt to introduce AI-powered digital humans,    marking a significant milestone in the Middle East and North Africa region. This collaboration aims to transform customer interactions and elevate the bank's digital services by providing virtual customer support. The Digital Humans are designed to manage routine inquiries and provide personalized assistance using a large range of languages and local dialects, thereby enhancing the overall customer experience.

Digital Human solution is being also implemented across key other countries: In the UAE, we have successfully set up an AI concierge for a large company, providing customers with a seamless and personalized banking experience; In KSA, we are currently working to develop a cutting-edge Digital Human solution to offer the next-generation of Customer Service and offer a "Wow-effect" for consumers.

Key features

• Personalized interactions: Digital Humans deliver highly tailored experiences by analyzing customer data, using AI to intuitively understand and respond to individual needs with precision.
• Judgment-free Interaction: Digital Humans provide a judgment-free platform, enhancing user comfort and trust, increasingly preferred for high-value financial transactions over traditional human interactions
• AI-powered emotional intelligence: Harnessing generative AI, natural language processing, and    Digital Humans replicate human emotional intelligence through real-time sentiment analysis, fostering meaningful connections and building customer trust.

• Augmented efficiency and accessibility: Capable of managing a large volume of customer inquiries simultaneously, Digital Humans improve service availability, streamline operations, and provide customers with faster, more efficient support.

   

Basic business applications

Digital Humans can be utilized across a variety of key use cases, serving as an umbrella for other AI-driven applications:

1. Customer inquiries: Digital Humans can manage routine customer inquiries, providing timely and personalized support
2. Support in customer onboarding: They can assist in streamlining the onboarding process by guiding customers through necessary steps and providing real-time support
3. Augmented Intelligence - Support in sales and Cross-Selling: Digital Humans can leverage AI to analyze customer behavior and preferences, providing personalized responses to customer inquiries about marketing campaigns and offering tailored product recommendations to enhance cross-selling opportunities. In client meetings, a Relationship Manager can use a Digital Human on an iPad to offer real-time nudges on products, improving efficiency and personalization
4. Training for users: Digital Humans can provide interactive training sessions to educate company users on sales techniques and offer support by responding to any questions about products and services, enhancing product knowledge and sales effectiveness.

They can interact with customers via text for relationship managers, voice for call centers, and video for mobile devices or kiosks, providing a consistent multi-channel support experience.

Advanced business applications

Digital Humans can serve as a powerful execution arm for various AI-driven use cases, enhancing their effectiveness and reach across advanced business applications such as

• Game-changing in sales management: Leverage Digital Humans to support sales processes, from preparing for client meetings to providing real-time product recommendations during discussions. Post-meeting, they can automate meeting minutes and generate commercial action plans, ensuring seamless follow-up and recommended product offerings.
• Automation of back-office tasks: Automate back-office tasks such as data processing and document management, reducing manual errors and increasing operational efficiency
• Complex issue resolution: Utilize Digital Humans to predict and address complex customer issues proactively, including handling collections and resolving disputes
• Strategic management advisory: Leverage data-driven Insights for informed decision making and risk mitigation. Enable senior leadership to make informed decisions using automated dashboards that provide key points, identify key risks, outline mitigation plans, and highlight decisions to be made. These dashboards can integrate AI to analyze large datasets, identify trends, and predict future outcomes, enhancing strategic planning and operational efficiency
• Regulatory analysis and compliance: Provide insights into regulatory changes by analyzing impacted domains, identifying necessary organizational adjustments, and highlighting commercial opportunities arising from these changes. This helps organizations stay compliant while capitalizing on new market opportunities.
• Segmentation: Digital Humans enable advanced segmentation. By analyzing customer data, Digital Humans can identify new customer segments and tailor interactions to enhance the user experience for each specific group.

By integrating these capabilities, Digital Humans can serve as a complementary tool for enhancing business operations, decision-making, and regulatory compliance.

Benefits of digital humans

The integration of Digital Humans is expected to yield several key benefits, including:

• Enhanced customer experience: Personalized interactions and 24/7 support improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, potentially increasing customer retention by up to 30% (benchmarks on chatbots and virtual assistants – source: Bain 2024)
• Operational efficiency and cost optimization: Automate routine tasks reducing operational costs by up to 20%, enhance employee productivity by up to 25% (benchmarks on chatbots and virtual assistants – source: Bain 2024)
• Increased sales: Personalized product recommendations and cross-selling opportunities can boost revenue by up to 15%
• Innovation leadership: Adoption positions organizations as innovation leaders, enhancing their competitive edge
• Scalability: Handle multiple customers simultaneously, reducing the need for large customer service teams.

Conclusion

Digital Human solution represents a significant step forward, offering a blend of innovation and efficiency that enhances customer experiences while driving operational excellence. As technology continues to evolve, the integration of AI-powered Digital Humans is poised to play a critical role in shaping the future of industry customer service.

By embracing Digital Humans as an execution arm for AI use cases and expanding their implementation across regions, Mastercard and its partners are not only enhancing customer experiences but also setting a new standard for innovation and efficiency.

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