The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has released a new issue spotlight regarding financial institutions adoption and use of chatbots.
“To reduce costs, many financial institutions are integrating artificial intelligence technologies to steer people toward chatbots,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said. “A poorly deployed chatbot can lead to customer frustration, reduced trust and even violations of the law.”
Per the CFPB, the agency has received numerous complaints from frustrated customers attempting to receive timely, straightforward answers from their financial institutions or raise a concern or dispute via chatbots.
The CFPB indicated some chatbots have human names and use popup features while others encourage engagement and use more complex technologies marketed as artificial intelligence to generate responses to customers.
The CFPB maintains chatbot use risks include noncompliance with federal consumer financial protection laws. The information chatbots provide may not be accurate, the technology may fail to recognize that a consumer is invoking their federal rights, or it may fail to protect their privacy and data; diminished customer service and trust when instead of finding help, consumers face repetitive loops of unhelpful jargon and consumers can struggle to get the response they need, including an inability to access a human customer service representative; and harm to consumers when chatbots provide inaccurate information regarding a consumer financial product or service, resulting in the consumer selecting the wrong product or service they need.