Mastercard Makes Commerce More Conversational with Launch of Chatbots for Banks and Merchants

Chatbots to Provide Partners with New Ways to Engage and Deliver
Compelling, Personalized Experiences to Consumers; Mastercard Bot for
Banks will be First Available on Facebook Messenger

NEW YORK & LAS VEGAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–#ai–Today at Money
20/20, Mastercard announced its plans to launch artificial
intelligence (AI) bots that allow consumers to transact, manage
finances, and shop via messaging platforms.

According to research firm Gartner, nearly $2 billion in online sales
will be performed exclusively through mobile digital assistants by the
end of 2016.¹ Mastercard is developing bots for both its
merchant and bank partners, which will use chat, messaging and natural
language interfaces to communicate with consumers. With the Mastercard
bots, partners can have a true dialogue with consumers and provide
personalized service, seamless user experience and contextual offers and
rewards.

Mastercard Bot for Banks

Mastercard KAI, the Mastercard bot for banks, will seamlessly extend
Mastercard services to customers on messaging platforms and make
financial information and decisions part of consumers’ everyday lives.
In this testing phase on Messenger, Mastercard is partnering with Kasisto,
the company that created KAI
Banking, the conversational artificial intelligence (AI) platform,
to power branded virtual assistants and smart bots for financial
services and is a current participant in the Mastercard
Start Path Global program.

Mastercard KAI is powered by KAI Banking’s deep knowledge in financial
services and conversational AI. It can fulfill customer requests and
solve problems, enabling financial institutions to create entirely new
consumer experiences – ones that are as easy and natural as texting a
friend. Starting early next year, consumers based in the United States
can ask the bot questions about their accounts, review purchase history,
monitor spending levels, learn about Mastercard cardholder benefits,
receive contextual offers through integration with Mastercard Priceless
experiences, and get help with financial literacy.

“We’re excited to partner with Mastercard to help drive conversational
commerce and engage with consumers where they spend their digital lives
– on messaging platforms,” said Zor Gorelov, CEO and co-founder,
Kasisto. “This bot enables entirely new experiences, bringing Mastercard
benefits and offers to consumers with human-like conversations that are
personal and contextual. We’re powering conversational commerce,
anytime, anywhere – just as consumers have come to expect.”

Currently in pilot testing on Messenger, Mastercard KAI will eventually
roll out to the 1 billion people who use Messenger every month.

Mastercard Bot for Merchants

With the Mastercard bot for merchants, consumers will be able to shop
and transact on messaging platforms and then check out with the Masterpass
global digital payment service. Developed by Mastercard Labs, the
bot enables consumers to start a simple conversation with a merchant and
complete a transaction without opening their wallets, visiting the
merchant’s app or waiting in line. The bot works across multiple
verticals – from airlines to retail – and runs on various messaging
platforms, making commerce more frictionless than ever before.

To accelerate development of conversational commerce among merchant
partners, Mastercard
plans to open up its experimental Bot
Commerce API on Mastercard
Developers platform later this year. Merchants can use this API in a
sandbox to begin testing chatbots powered by Masterpass.

“At Mastercard, we believe that AI-driven conversations between
companies and their customers can drive better customer experiences in
places and platforms that consumers are already engaging in.,” said Kiki
Del Valle, senior vice president, Commerce for Every Device, Mastercard.
“Mastercard Labs has been testing integration of key Mastercard products
and services within different messaging platforms and we’re thrilled to
test Mastercard KAI on Messenger first. We will keep moving this
test-and-learn approach to the next phase by developing chatbots that
are naturally ingrained into a consumer’s daily life and helps our
partners stimulate business interactions that are more conversational.”

About Mastercard

Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com,
is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the
world’s fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers,
financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more
than 210 countries and territories. Mastercard products and solutions
make everyday commerce activities – such as shopping, traveling, running
a business and managing finances – easier, more secure and more
efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardNews,
join the discussion on the Beyond
the Transaction Blog and subscribe for
the latest news on the Engagement
Bureau.

About Kasisto:

Kasisto
was founded in 2013 with the vision of enabling companies to engage and
transact with their customers through intelligent conversations,
anytime, anywhere. Kasisto’s conversational AI platform, KAI, offers
enterprises a comprehensive AI technology stack combined with
industry-specific domain expertise to make bots and virtual assistants
well versed in the businesses they serve. As an SRI International
spin-off, Kasisto leverages decades of research and development in
artificial intelligence. KAI Banking enables financial institutions to
add virtual assistants and smart bots to their mobile apps and leading
messaging platforms. With an emphasis on great user experience,
KAI-powered virtual assistants and smart bots are easy to implement,
customize and maintain. For more information visit www.kasisto.com
and follow @kasistoinc
on Twitter.

¹ Gartner report “Predicts 2015: Digital Marketers Will
Monetize Disruptive Forces” by Jennifer S. Beck, Mike McGuire, Adam
Sarner, Andrew Frank, Jennifer Polk and Jake Sorofman.

Contacts

Mastercard
Chaiti Sen, 917.408.2912
chaiti.sen@mastercard.com