In an exclusive interaction with Adlin Pertishya Jebaraj, Correspondent of Finance Outlook, Saurabh Garg, Founder & Chief Business Officer, NoBroker, discusses the use of conversational AI to transform financial institutions beyond cost optimization, to promote productivity, enhance lead conversions, and enhance the customer experience with the use of contextual intelligence. He stresses its contribution to the overall enlargement of the addressable market through voice access of those users who feel uneasy using digital interfaces.
Saurabh Garg is an experienced business leader and entrepreneur who has an experience of more than 19 years in sales, marketing, and digital innovation. He is an industry veteran having worked in scalable consumer marketplaces, growth strategies and high impact digital transformation programs.
How do you assess the impact of conversational AI on the overall cost structure of financial institutions?
Conversational AI should be viewed through two distinct lenses. While many stakeholders focus primarily on cost optimization, the impact extends far beyond operational savings.
From a productivity standpoint, consider a traditional call center environment where performance levels vary across agents, some are highly effective, others average, and some below average. With conversational AI integrated into workflows, agent performance becomes standardized at a higher level. The technology increases the contextual awareness, guidance, and level of response accuracy, which effectively places all the agents at a level above average. This leads to an increase in productivity.
The second dimension is the enhancement of revenue. The conversational AI will allow agents to convert leads more efficiently, which will enhance lead-to-conversion rates. This has a direct effect on incremental revenue growth.
On top of this, customers are served in a better manner. Conversational AI is able to maintain contextual memory of previous interactions which keeps a conversation on track. Customers are not required to repeat information, which makes engagements more efficient and meaningful with shorter periods. This better experience creates contentment and retention.
The third and also notable effect is the expansion of the market. There is a high population that is not comfortable with the use of mobile applications or websites. Conversational AI enables such individuals to just make calls and transact through agentic processes. This increases the reach to a greater number of customers, introducing new customers to the financial ecosystem.
How should a conversational AI platform balance data privacy, security, and transparency while delivering seamless user transactions?
Privacy and data security should be central. Many different configurations of conversational AI platforms can be used on-cloud deployment, private cloud, or on-premise.
With these deployments, the data is stored in the institutional infrastructure whether on its cloud or in its premises making certain that the current data governance and privacy policies and regulations are followed.
To the best of institutions, they do not have to make data available to others, and current regulatory and compliance frameworks still hold. This system ensures that there is security as well as transparency even as it can facilitate smooth transactional experiences.
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Where do you see conversational AI evolving in the next three to five years within the finance sector?
The development of conversational AI has to be considered within the framework of the digital transformation that is taking place in India. Different leaders including Nandan Nilekani and Pramod Varma who contributed significantly to the development of the digital public infrastructure of India have underlined the transformational potential of inclusive technology stacks.
Indians feel more at ease speaking rather than typing. India as a whole has not benefited fully on digital financial services due to either linguistic, literacy or usability reasons because a huge part of the land is called Bharat. This gap is filled by conversational AI.
Allowing the user to communicate in their native language Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, or any other it also makes financial services available to other people, who might feel uneasy when using English or operating applications in smartphones. This will open a vast untapped market.
Nowadays, a number of people are dependent on intermediaries or inefficient service delivery because of a low level of digital adoption. Conversational AI can remove these barriers and help to democratize access to finance.
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Is there anything you would like to share with readers and young professionals looking toward emerging technologies?
The voice AI is the new revolutionary edge. Similarly to Aadhaar and UPI transforming the financial and digital landscape of India, voice interfaces will be able to greatly increase the scope of inclusion.
Although an approximation of 500 million people use UPI, a significant part of the population is not covered by its reach. Voice-enabled systems have an ability to reach the whole population - even the illiterates.
Using voice technology, one only needs to speak and use it. Even a feature phone is enough; a smart phone is not a requirement. This practically reduces barriers to entry to the digital economy.
Voice should be the future focus, thus, as an inclusive, scalable technology that can deliver financial services to every one of the 1.4 billion citizens.
