Your banker is always in: Sweden rolls out the robots

Stockholm

AIDA is the perfect employee: always courteous, always learning and, as she says: "Always at work, 24/7, 365 days a year." Aida, of course, is not a person but a virtual customer-service representative that SEB AB, one of Sweden's biggest banks, is rolling out. The goal is to give the actual humans more time to engage in more complex tasks.

After blazing a trail in online and digital banking, Sweden's financial industry is now emerging as a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence. Besides Aida at SEB, there's Nova, which is a chatbot that Nordea Bank AB is introducing at its life and pensions unit in Norway. Swedbank AB is adding to the skills of its virtual assistant, Nina.