Kate

About nine months ago, KBC (Banking and Insurance) asked me to create the technical architecture of a strategic project. At that time, the project was still protected by an NDA. The project needed to use data science algorithms to generate hyper-personalized recommendations for KBC’s customers. These recommendations had to be delivered when and how the customer wants them. After a week or two, with a very small team, we could present a first working proof-of-concept to our steering committee. The recommendation itself was only the start. The customer also needed to be able to interact frictionless with these recommendations. The user interface needed to be both conversational, yet rich in features. Alexa and Siri made voice popular, so we also needed to support speech dialogue. Both text-to-speech and speech-to-text. As our team grew, so did our capabilities. And the expectations.

Last week, we launched Kate to over 1.3 million customers in Belgium. The building blocks for bi-weekly (or faster, if desired) releases are in place.

Today, we embrace the next phase in Kate’s journey and continue an evolutionary design for a powerful future!