Announced on Money20/20’s Build Bold stage, Yolande Piazza, vice president, financial services at Google Cloud, and Michelle Moore, executive vice president, head of digital at Wells Fargo told an avid audience that after a year in the making, Fargo will be available to all clients at the beginning of 2023.

Piazza explained that the bank has leveraged a lot of the technology that Google uses to power its AI system products, to focus on delivering a differentiated experience that allows Wells Fargo customers to be able to experience their finances and interact the same way they would if they were texting their friends.

She continued that “hyper-personalisation is absolutely key, and is no longer new technology. It has has become table stakes as an expectation for consumers, and Fargo has really focused on delivering that connectivity and customer journey in a different way.”

Moore added what “Fargo does is give you the ‘why’ behind why things are happening. Where a mobile app is binary, Fargo offers personalised financial insights. That’s the key for getting it right for customers.”

Key features of the Fargo experience include: - Flagging unexpected insights or unusual payments - Simplified budgeting - Identifying areas and advice for potential saving or debt consolidation

Piazza explained Fargo will be built on Google Cloud’s core conversational AI platform Dialogflow, and will use the language processing capabilities of the platform to understand customers’ intents and provide a tailored response.

Wells Fargo owns all of the models, meaning that Google does not and has not seen any customer data, which presented an interesting testing process.

Moore concluded: “It’s been absolutely amazing to have thought leadership and partnerships with Google and Wells Fargo together to help millions and millions of people with their finances. It’s been an amazing journey that we’ve been on.”

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