Also covered are how Domino's beat Pizza Hut to become the largest pizza chain in the world and the most active utility investor in emerging markets.
Today, we discuss:
- Does Bank of America’s conversational banking technology spell bad news for financial services’ virtual assistants?
- A look at consumer electronics failures from May
- A prediction about an M&A target in online grocery
- TL;DR on sports betting, SoftBank’s plans for world domination on hold, and that iZettle IPO
Domino’s takes over as the world’s largest pizza chain- ENGIE is the most active utility investor
Bank of America moves into conversational banking. What’s the prognosis for startup virtual assistants targeting financial services?
Last week, Bank of America revealed plans to roll out Erica, its conversational banking bot, to its 25M customers. The bot can check routing numbers, view bills and schedule payments, lock and unlock a user’s debit card, send money to friends via Zelle, and find past transactions, among other activities.
What does Bank of America’s mostly home-grown technology strategy mean for other private virtual assistants in the space?
A number of private, investor-backed companies have moved into the space. Initially, these were chatbots, and then as that term moved out of favor, they became “virtual assistants” (although “conversational banking” is the new hot term, it appears).
