By now the term AI comes up many times a day in your life. It seems that a new AI platform sprouts up every few months, and it’s very likely that you use AI as part of doing your job better, or likely even in your personal life. But when it comes to websites for bank and credit unions, most digital marketers are still in the early stages of figuring out how to best use AI. Modern content management systems are also offering AI features to transform the way content is created, optimized and managed, and many third party platforms are also leveraging AI. Let’s dive into how your institution can dip a toe, foot or even jump right into the ever changing, wonderful world of AI.
CMS AI Offerings
Modern CMS’ are always looking at ways that AI can improve site management and user experience, and the CMS’ ZAG Interactive builds our client sites in are no exception.
Xperience by Kentico & AI
Our custom Kentico sites are now all built in Xperience by Kentico, a powerful hybrid headless .NET digital experience platform. New features are being rolled out monthly, one of which is AIRA, leveraging Azure OpenAI. AIRA, available with the Advanced license level, provides recommendations and assistance for site administrators. Examples of what’s available now or planned for the near future:
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Alternative copy suggestions in the rich text editor which can be used for copywriting inspiration
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Automatic ALT tags for images (which of course are still editable for SEO and ADA)
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Ability to identify image focus points to ensure cropping accuracy, which is especially helpful on mobile devices
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Ability to enhance and change image types
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Optimize journey insights which could help with marketing automation and personalization
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Transform certain types of content into others (e.g., a blog post into an e-newsletter)
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Tag assignment for content types in the content hub
Umbraco & AI
Umbraco, a popular .NET open-source content management system, also offers several AI features, with more on the horizon. While Umbraco is baking a few features into its platform like AI in the rich text editor, it will continue to reply on its marketplace for additional features such as:
Importantly, since not all marketplace add ons are supported by Umbraco, it’s important that site owners ensure that they continue to be supported as the site is upgraded. The marketplace shows which versions each is supported in which helps make things easier.
Using AI in Third Party Platforms
Banking websites integrate with a multitude of vendors – from site search to chat to CRMs. Many of these vendors are now incorporating AI into their platforms or consuming site content for AI engines, for example:
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Chatbot vendors: AI can help enhancing customer service and offer more personalized customer or member support.
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Site search vendors: AI can help amplify search result functionality and deliver more relevant results.
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CRM vendors: AI can help automate certain business processes and ultimately improve customer relationship management.
But, Proceed with Caution in the Banking space
For anyone who has worked on a website project, legal and compliance teams must review and approve every single word. Fundamentally with AI, content is generated dynamically, so it’s important for every bank and credit union marketer to develop a process that aligns with their legal and compliance partners. It is always smart to engage these partners early and often while navigating the ever-changing world of AI.
AI is both exciting and potentially intimidating to most institutions. Defining basic things that AI can help make more efficient for you is a great place to start. And, keeping a tab on the evolution of AI in your CMS and other digital partners is a great way to realize the potential benefits it can have.
At ZAG, we are always looking at ways that technology can help you and your end users. But we also always advocate for doing your research and getting full buy-in from the range of folks who you must interact with and report to. We would love to talk with you about your website and your short and long-term plans. And by the way, in case you were wondering, no, this article wasn’t written with AI. But, AI was referenced for general inspiration and an initial outline, allowing us to embrace technology while keeping true to our mission of creating custom, helpful content for financial marketers.