As we close off the year, I have been asked for my single prediction for 2018. You can appreciate that this is quite difficult, as there is so much happening in Conversational Commerce, especially in the area of Intelligent Authentication. After much thought on the multitude of competing trends, I choose Continuous Authentication as my top-trend for 2018.

2017 has been a mega-year for Identification, Authentication and Consumer Data Privacy, with the lion’s share of attention going to high profile data breaches at Equifax, Yahoo and Uber among other large-scale enterprises and government agencies. This has fueled the need for urgent implementation of stricter regulations, such as the GDPR (Deadline: May 25, 2018) and PSD2 soon after by end 2019. Some innovative solutions have also resulted from implementation strategies, supported by very exciting technological developments that not only support compliance, but unlock new opportunities for existing and new players.

Authentication also witnessed an assortment of technological innovations, mostly through ever-improving smartphone capabilities. Fingerprinting sensor technologies that can read fingerprints through glass displays makes for the greatest improvement in usability, with plans of large scale availability in 2018. The iPhone X, Samsung’s S8 and a range of other ‘entry level’ Android phones (such as the Xiaomi Note) introduced facial recognition. What is notable about these methods of finger and facial recognition is that they are able to continuously authenticate as the user taps, types, swypes and looks at the phone.

Defining the Four Factors

Authentication on smartphones, tablets and notebooks is also benefiting through device biometrics that use a combination of keystroke dynamics, device orientation (accelerometer) and location (network triangulation and GPS), in combination with other behaviours such as time, frequency and value of transaction.

Voice-enabled personal assistants such as Siri, Bixby, Alexa, Google Assistant, AliGenie and even Microsoft’s Cortana, have homes in Amazon Echo, Google Home, Alibaba Tmall Genie and the much awaited, but presently delayed, Apple Homepod. This has spurred demand for voice authentication that utilizes the same interaction data to seamlessly authenticate the user during the conversation with the virtual assistant to provide friction-free fulfillment of secure services such as shopping cart checkout, payment instructions, etc.

Make Way for Secure, Trusted, Friction-free Commerce
Usability and security will be key drivers as competition heats up to capture customers at their first and preferred device and modality of interaction. Conversational interfaces will be able to support voice, tap and typing with equal effectiveness, and authentication will happen seamlessly within those mediums. User authentication will be supplemented with additional layers of authentication throughout the technology thread, starting with end-point authentication of the device, through to the carrier network and enterprise systems. As these are all passive in nature, they will be applied continuously without any activity or cognitive load on the user, thereby enhancing the overall user experience, while simultaneously improving confidence in the authenticity of the user.

We are at the cusp of an entire new category of authentication, which no longer fits neatly into the first, second and third factor classifications. Check back early in 2018 for ‘the fourth Factor’.

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants, Intelligent Authentication, Articles