“Alexa, ask USAA how I can save $30.”

In the demo video below that simple command actually meant, “Help me buy new soccer cleats for my son.” Powered by USAA’s Savings Booster, a feature that the company has offered to its banking customers since mid-2015, Alexa quickly responded with a suggested action. Next thing you know, the happy Mom watches her child head out the door wearing the new shoes.

According to Darrius Jones, AVP of Enterprise Innovation at USAA, the company built a crack team to rise to the , a contest conducted by PYMNTS.com, operator of a website that features latest information related to e-commerce and online payment methods.

To build its demo, USAA’s developers were able to create the Alexa-based conversational interface to Savings Booster, an existing feature for banking customers, in a matter of 10 hours. It then took 22 days to implement and be up-and-running on the Alexa platform. It is one of the first examples of the type of device-agnostic, conversational Intelligent Assistant that Jones described in the ” delivered at the IA-Squared-London, Opus Research’s event that brings together the Intelligent Assistant and Intelligent Authentication communities.

It is powerful because it demonstrates how a simple statement to a conversational interface can initiate a relatively complex set of computational and analytic activities resulting in a prescriptive call to action that culminates in a transaction. And speaking of prescriptions, this years Alexa Challenge Champ is Davincian Healthcare, whose shows how Alexa can remind its patients to take prescribed medication, among many other functions – including descriptions of the purpose of medications, providing pictures of the described medication, alerts or reminders to take medicines and assistance in purchase and delivery of new meds.

To paraphrase the great fiction writer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke, this type of advanced technology, when implemented correctly should be “indistinguishable from magic.” We’re getting there.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants

Tags: Intelligent Assistance, USAA, Alexa