Scotiabank Launches Experience-Driven AI Solution C.MEE

Need to Know

• Scotiabank has unveiled C.MEE, a new AI technology that connects a client’s data across multiple channels to offer personalized experiences and recommendations.
• C.MEE can understand how a client interacts with the bank—mobile, web, by phone, or otherwise—and send specialized offers and advice through the channel they interact with most.
• The technology can also interpret intent. For example, if a customer is searching for investment solutions on the Scotiabank site, they may receive a personalized offer within hours that incentivizes them to use the bank’s investing platforms.
• C.MEE is built on Scotiabank’s Global AI Platform, which will enable expansion to the Americas by the end of 2021.

Analysis

Scotiabank today unveiled C.MEE, a new AI technology meant to better connect clients to the platforms and advice the bank offers.

The new technology analyzes a Scotiabank client’s data across multiple channels—in-person, mobile, web, app, social media, and over the phone— and creates a unified view of customer preferences and information. Scotiabank can then use that data to drive specific offers, platforms, or advice to the client through the channel they see fit.

“With C.MEE, we’ll be able to provide customers with relevant solutions in real-time,” Scotiabank’s EVP of data and analytics Phil Thomas told Digital. “The more they interact with us, the more we can run the model. We can learn what channel they’re using, what products they interact with, and more, then push them relevant offers. It’s centered around providing customers choice.”

Currently, one of the main use cases for C.MEE is Scotiabank’s Advice+ platform. As the bank engages customers through Advice+, C.MEE can offer more detailed tidbits of information that in turn create a more robust and results-driven conversation. This works whether it’s a customer looking for advice on their own or meeting with an advisor.

“We’re able to pull data from multiple sources that informs the discussion,” says Thomas. “We can pull information and pop back out to the customer an offer or advice that’s appropriate for them. It underpins Advice+.”

C.MEE also works for Scotiabank customers engaging through other bank channels. Thomas outlines an example: If a client is searching through the bank’s website at 2AM looking for investment solutions or advice, C.MEE can gather that data and send a personalized offer that will be waiting for them when they wake up. Depending on if the customer prefers to use email or the app, the offer will be waiting as a push notification or sitting in their inbox. The details of that offer might be a discounted rate for initial investments or something else meant to draw the customer into Scotiabank’s investment platforms.

“We can also offer you a phone call,” says Thomas “Through C.MEE, we can send a notice to the customer’s financial advisor that they’re looking for a solution, and that FA can proactively call them and get a conversation going.”

This notion of C.MEE bridging a digital gap is an important one, according to Thomas. Through C.MEE, Scotiabank can centralize all of a customer’s data across multiple channels and have it prepared for an advisor before they meet with a client.

“It’s predictive and descriptive analytics, all based on customer behavior,” explains Thomas.

At its core, Thomas describes C.MEE as a platform that supports shifting customer habits and provides a compelling experience, regardless if the customer engages digitally or in-person.

“Being able to receive intuitive value-add offers is important,” he says. “It’s kind of how the consumer interacts with everything else outside banking already, you know? The way people consume products is fundamentally shifting.”

Thomas notes that, despite the pandemic driving the majority of consumer banking interactions online, the industry is still very based on face-to-face branch interactions and call centers, and that won’t go away soon.

“The real sweet spot for us is to mesh knowing customer better through AI with providing customers options on how they want to interact with us. It’s a matter of leveraging these advancements to provide smarter choices. The more we know, the better we can design digital tools that make sense for every customer.”

Scaling C.MEE and Scotiabank AI

C.MEE runs through Scotiabank’s Global AI Platform, a solution first launched at the beginning of last year but unveiled in November 2020. The global platform unites data across several Scotiabank touchpoints into one central location that all other tools—consumer-facing or otherwise—can then utilize.

The advantage of this is C.MEE’s ability to scale into new markets. Although it will be live in only Canada for the first half of 2021, it will push to Scotiabank’s other markets before the year ends, including Mexico, Colombia, and Peru.

Thomas said one of the main goals for C.MEE was to ensure it could be expanded beyond Canada and impact Scotiabank’s significant reach in the Americas.