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USAA To Add Nuance Virtual Assistant to Mobile App

Nicknamed "Nina," the Nuance offering allows companies to add speech-based virtual assistant capabilities to their existing iOS and Android apps.

San Antonio, Texas-based USAA is the launch partner for Nuance Communications' (Burligton, Mass.) Nina, a virtual assistant for mobile customer service apps, the companies said today in a statement.

Nuance, which offers speech recognition, text-to-speech, voice biometrics, and natural language understanding technology, says the objective was to create an open software development kit that allows companies to integrate speech-based capabilities quickly into their existing apps.

USAA will pilot the new technology in August, with an eye toward releasing it to all customers in early 2013.

"We believe that the virtual assistant has tremendous potential to make it simpler, faster and more satisfying for our members to manage their financial affairs on their mobile devices," says Neff Hudson, assistant vice president of emerging channels for USAA, in a statement.

[Read what Hudson has to say about the value of lessons from retail in improving the insurance customer experience.]

Companies get the pre-made, but customizable, Nina persona; cloud-hosted, speech-based capablities, and the Nina SDK from Nuance. The SDK, currently available in US, UK and Australian English, has three components, according to Nuance:

  1. Nina Core APIs: Binary APIs that provide access to the core cloud services, such as speech recognition, text to speech and NLU, giving control and customization to the mobile app developer.

  2. Nina Virtual Assistant APIs: Source APIs that provide mobile app developers with access to customize the persona, as well as providing control of all modes of input, including speech recognition, text-to-speech and touch dialogs.

  3. Nina Reference Designs: Source code of Nina Virtual Assistant apps and functions, including the Nina Banking Assistant, deliver pre-designed templates and tasks for store location, bill pay, account information and over 200 other banking-related queries. These can be adapted to insurance and other sectors, the company asserts.

Nathan Golia is senior editor of Insurance & Technology. He joined the publication in 2010 as associate editor and covers all aspects of the nexus between insurance and information technology, including mobility, distribution, core systems, customer interaction, and risk ... View Full Bio

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