A continuous and collaborative partnership
NAB decided to develop a chatbot that would serve as a source of truth in answering employees’ IT questions. After comparing four chatbot services, the bank chose Microsoft’s Azure Cognitive Services and Bot Framework.
“We looked at the user interface and user authentication, the integrations required, usability and even the scalability we wanted to achieve with NAB,” Ghuliani said. “The main criteria above is the security of our data and for our colleagues, and then any additional considerations from a cost perspective.
“We took a deep dive into all of this and found that if we used other bots, we would have to do more work and spend more time and money compared to what we had to do with Microsoft because it’s part of our journey in the clouds.”
NAB signed a five-year multicloud partnership with Microsoft in 2020 to boost its stability, speed and innovation. The bank also uses Microsoft 365 services, including Microsoft Teams, to enhance productivity and collaboration across its workforce.
Working closely with Microsoft engineers and architects, NAB developed and deployed a master chatbot for employees. Staff members can access the NAB Bot using the Teams app on their computers or mobile phones. The bot is also available as a web interface with access limited to NAB employees.
Integration with ServiceNow means NAB Bot can tap into a knowledge repository of employees’ most frequently asked questions. It also allows the bank to easily transfer employees to a live chat with its 24/7 support team.
However, the security approach is what makes this chatbot unique. Through the project, NAB became one of the few large enterprises in the world to deploy Azure Cognitive Services using private endpoints. These are private IP addresses that are only accessible within a specific virtual network and subnet.
“This is a wonderful achievement [moving from public to private endpoints] because it was new territory for all of us, including the Microsoft engineers assigned to us,” Ghuliani said. “But that journey was made easier and smoother because of the workshops and collaborations we had.
“Microsoft engineers have been very open and willing to share their knowledge with us, and that has helped us get to where we are today.”
Since the NAB Bot went live in November 2021, employees have used it more than 53,000 times and given it an average employee rating of 4½ out of five.
“From a usability and performance perspective, the chatbot definitely exceeded our expectations,” Ghuliani said. “What’s really exciting to see is that more than 50 percent of all NAB Bot interactions come from our customer-facing colleagues, because we want to make a difference for our customers.”