KAI - Kasisto Artificial Intelligence

A banking virtual assistant that learns.

Client
Kasisto, Inc.
What is KAI?

Scope
0-1 envisioning, digital visual experience design and motion design, executed in no more than 20 hours per week and a very low budget.

Role and Contributions
UI/UX Designer, with focus on Visual Design
and Animation. Conversational UI Design.

Timeline:
April 2020 - July 2020

Overview

Kasisto needed a vision. One on a low budget and limited timeline. I was contracted in this role to put forward a concept for a VA Avatar that lends itself to the branding in place - in other words:

• It had to work with the already established branding of Kasisto’s clientele.
• It had to have animated states.
• It had to be wireframed in-situ with visual designs.

The virtual assistants specifically for banks I looked at were:

• Clari (TD Bank)
• Stacy (Standard Chartered)
• Erica (Bank of America)

VAs are meant to replace human conversation via auditory and textual means. While chatbots are server or company oriented, a Virtual Assistant is user/customer oriented. It is an application program that understands natural language voice commands and completes tasks for the customer. VAs save money in sales, since they are an addition to the website. They help customers troubleshoot, work with discount codes, loyalty programs and solve almost 70% of other customer issues without needing human intervention.

A week into the project Kasisto’s banking virtual assistant remained illusive. I even experimented with breaking the company’s logo apart and having it animate, which in retrospect, was the right direction for what was to come. After my first presentation I received a most valuable feedback from Kasisto's Director of Marketing and some constraints that truly helped further my work.

The VA was to be named KAI, after Kasisto Artificial Intelligence. It was to be a genderless objectless entity that represents a higher promise beyond just a persona. It was to be an experience. In other words, what Kasisto brings to the table is a model driven by data, instead of a conversational persona. It could abstract and therefore lend itself well to various branding. It has movement to it, as well as states. As in: state of Alert, state of Thinking, state of Calculating, Idleness, even Regret or Satisfaction (Happiness).

The Solution

The VA was to be named KAI, after Kasisto Artificial Intelligence. It was to be a genderless objectless entity representing a higher promise beyond just a persona. It was to be an experience. In other words, what Kasisto brings to the table is a data-driven model, instead of a conversational persona. It could abstract and therefore lend itself well to various branding. It has motion to each state it projects. As in: States of Alert, Thinking, Calculating, Idleness, even Regret or Satisfaction (Happiness).

Daily Cycle

An early idea about the User Inactivity state: With time, KAI turns itself into a sunrise - sunset scene and night sky with the moon appearing. Because KAI knows the birthday of the particular user, the star constellation in the night sky turns into their star sign. The storyboard scene can be used for other special occasions as well. The animation is smooth and the music is relaxing.