BNZ’s new call centre voice assistant can speak te reo

Thu, 03 Dec 2020

Bank of New Zealand will launch a natural text-to-speech voice assistant early next year called Āwhina, which in te reo means to assist or to help.Āwhina will be able to answer customer calls and was given a female persona after BNZ surveyed customers for their preference. She can speak in English with Kiwisms and slang, as well as Māori, according to Bridgette Dalzell, general manager of customer connection hubs at BNZ.The assistant is designed to interact with customers and pass their queries on to either the correct banker or an online servi...

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