aws re:invent 2016: how capital one built a voice-based banking skill for amazon echo (alx201)

© 2016, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.

Scott Totman - Head of Mobile Technology, Payments, and Innovation at Capital One

David Isbitski – Chief Evangelist, Alexa and Echo at Amazon

November 29, 2016

How Capital One Built a Voice-Based

Banking Skill for Amazon Echo

ALX201

W E BEL I EVE VO I C E R EPR ESEN TS TH E N EXT M AJ O R D I SR U PT I O N I N C O M PU TI N G

C O N VERSATION IS T H E MO ST N AT U RAL W AY T O EN G AG E W ITH YO U R PR O DUCT S

VO IC E R EL EASES T H E F R IC T ION O F T R AD IT IONAL T EC H NOLOGY IN T ER ACTION

U SER S C AN N OW IN T ER ACT W ITH YO U R PR O DUCT IN A MO R E IN T IMAT E W AY

Create Great Content:

ASK is how you connect

to your consumer

A L E X A F R A M E W O R K SSupported by two powerful frameworks

ALEX A

VOI CE

SERVI CE

Unparalleled Distribution:

AVS allows your content

to be everywhereLives In The Cloud

Automated Speech

Recognition (ASR)

Natural Language

Understanding (NLU)

Always Learning

ALEX A

SKI LLS

KI T

What Have We Learned?

Key Design Principles for

ALEXA SKILLS Skills Should Provide High Value

A Skill Should Evolve Over Time

Users Can Speak to Your Skill Naturally and

Spontaneously

Alexa Should Understand Most Requests to

Your Skill

A Skill Should Respond in an Appropriate Way

High Utility Low Utility

DoingPerforms a Task

“Alexa, ask Scout to arm away mode.”

“Away mode armed. You

have 45 seconds to leave the

house.”

SearchingIdentifies specific info

“Alexa, ask Vendor if there are Pearl Jam tickets available for this weekend.”

“There are a limited number

of tickets, ranging from $49

to $279.”

TellingProvides a quick

reference point

“Alexa, tell me a cat fact.”

“It is well known that dogs

are superior to cats.”

BrowsingGives info on a broad

subject

“Alexa, ask Amazon what’s on sale.”

“The following items are on

sale right now...”

Example of Automatic Learning

ALEXA SKILLAlexa, launch Travel Buddy

Hi, I’m Travel Buddy. I can easily tell you about your

daily commute. Let’s get you set up. Where are you

starting from?

Philadelphia

Okay, and where are you going?

Boston

Great, now whenever you ask, I can tell you about

the commute from Philadelphia to Boston. The

current drive time is five hours and twenty-three

minutes. There is an accident on I-95 near Hartford.

Alexa, launch Travel Buddy

Your commute is currently five hours and two

minutes.

Users Can Speak to Your Skill Naturally and Spontaneously

The experience of using your Alexa skill should allow users to not

have to think about what to say and allow them to not remember how

to say it.

They should be able to converse with Alexa just as they would

another human.

All they need is a rough idea of what Alexa can do (e.g. playing

music, setting a timer, etc.), and they just ask her to do it.

This is the real value of voice interface, but this value can quickly

erode in a skill that forces users to interact in unnatural ways.

Users Can Speak to Your Skill Naturally and Spontaneously

You should try to remove artificial skill syntax and make interactions

within your skill as natural as possible.

Allowing your users to make simple requests without having to think

about the format those requests should be in will create a much

better experience.

New Features

Capital One Skill for Alexa

Capital One – Real World Experiences

Capital One’s Skill Overview

Capital One’s Alexa JourneyJuly 2015. Tech off-

site & rapid

prototyping

October 2015.

Prototype at AWS

re:Invent

March 2016. Launch

Capital One for Alexa

skill

November 2015.

Formal project kick-

off

October 2016.

Semantic search feature

@ Grace Hopper

Capital One Skill FocusWhat do customers want from their bank?

Help me

perform a

task

Financially

speaking...

am I okay?

What the heck!?

I don’t recognize

this purchase.

Help Me Perform a Task

I want to

transfer money

to savings

I need to pay

my credit card

bill

I want to pay

my utility bill

I’m about to

travel. Please

don’t decline

my card!

How do I

order a

Venture Card?

What’s the last

thing I bought?

Financially Speaking… Am I OK?

What’s my

credit card

balance?

Did my

payment go

through?

How much did

I spend at

Starbucks last

month?

When is my

next payment

due?

What’s left in

my checking

account?

Capital One Skill Features

Initial Feature Set

Pay credit card bill with existing primary payment account

Provide your credit card balance Provide your checking and/or

savings account balances List your recent transactions Provide your available credit

amount Tell you when payment is due Give you an account summary Easter egg: What’s in your wallet?

Evolved Feature Set

Prefetch customer account information

Activate a new credit card Provide credit card APR information Provide credit card transactions at a

specific location Provide total spending amount

within a specific category like dining Lock and unlock credit card

What we’ve learned…

How to talk to our customersEx: What’s my credit card balance?

The following balance may or

may not be accurate due to

partial payments, pending

transactions, and overall

money movement policies.

By listening to this message

you implicitly accept all

liabilities….Your

QuickSilver

balance is

$470.34

What exactly do

you mean by

“balance”?

There are more than 150 ways to ask about recent spending

List my recent

{AcctType} transactions

My recent {AcctType}

transactions

Get my recent transactions

for account ending with

{LastFour}

Get recent {AcctType}

transactions

What are my recent

{AcctType}

transactions

What are my recent charges?

Get my transactions for account {LastFour}

Get my recent transactions for

account in {LastFour}

Transactions for account

ending {LastFour}

Get my transactions for

account {LastFour}

What did I buy?

What have I bought in the

last few days?

What have I purchased

recently?My recent transactions for

account ending with {LastFour}

"intent":"RecentTransactions",

"slots":[

{

"name":"LastFour",

"type":"AMAZON.FOUR_

DIGIT_NUMBER"

},

{

"name":"AcctType",

"type":"AccountType"

}

]

Awkward silence

Forced conversationNo personality

How to balance security and convenience

Security Convenience

How to balance security and convenience

SecuritySpoken pin

Push noti f ication

Secret phrase

Convenience

How to balance security and convenience

ConvenienceOAuth account l inking

Optional PIN

Security

Spoken pin

Push notif ication

Secret phrase

{ "intent": "AccountBalance", "slots":

[ { "name": "LastFour", "type":

"AMAZON.FOUR_DIGIT_NUMBER" },

{ "name":

"AccountType", "type":

"AccountType" }, { "name":

"ProductType", "type": "ProductType" } ] },

Utterance Compiler

Compiler Template Input

how much [is|do I have] in {My} ([{AccountType}|{ProductType}])? account

Compiler Template Output

AccountBalance how much is in my {AccountType} account

AccountBalance how much is in my {ProductType} account

AccountBalance how much is in my account

AccountBalance how much do I have in my {AccountType}

account

AccountBalance how much do I have in my {ProductType}

accountAccountBalance how much do I have in my account

Debug ToolUsername

Feature to Test

Amazon Commands to Invoke

Account Balance Feature

Optional Input

LastFour

AccountType

ProductType

CurrencyType

What’s

CurrentBalance

EndingWith

My

Alexa OutputHelp

Stop

No

Yes

Repeat

AccountBalance

AvailableCredit

BillDueDate

AmountDue

RecentTransactions

Financial Summary

Test

Platinum

“The current balance on your Platinum card ending in <say-as interpret-as=“characters”>3889</say-as> is $12501.57. “

Abstraction Layer• Pull out common logic for chatbots and other capabilities• Breakout routing middleware, intent handlers, and backend services

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