Companies like Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Spotify and Netflix use algorithms to try to offer their users personalized recommendations. Two Spanish researchers found that even in these personalized suggestions, the views of the majority carry a heavy weight.

The arrival of new blockchain platforms, advances in cloud computing and the consolidation of new machine-human interactions, are among the hottest trends according BBVA Next Technologies ‘Tech Radar 2018‘, a report that shines the spotlight on some the most relevant tools and practices in 2018, as well as those that will mark the next years in fields such as big data and artificial intelligence.

Driverless cars capable of behaving like bird flocks, software capable of playing sheets of music composed during the Renaissance, algorithms capable of analyzing emotions expressed by social media users and tools for boosting people’s learning abilities… These are just some areas on which the winners of this year’s edition of the Spanish Computer Science Society (SCIE) – BBVA Foundation Research Awards have focused their work.

It might seem like a strange question to be asking, but given the multiple elements that drive the success of a bank, and given also that increasingly location is a key determining factor in how you deliver great customer experience, its an important topic.

At BBVA Open Summit, Ricardo Forcano, BBVA’s Global Head of Talent and Culture; and Rob Brown, Global CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) at BBVA, chatted with the representatives of two startups that are working to leverage blockchain and AI technologies to enable new decentralized ways of working.

Devices with combined cloud technology and neural networks integrated into their hardware – to reduce potential stability, privacy, and latency issues – are now a reality.

The issue is no longer about using data, but doing it in a responsible manner that also has a positive impact on users’ lives.  This was one of the most relevant topics discussed during the second day of BBVA Open Summit, where Derek White, Global Head of Client Solutions at BBVA, stressed that user confidence is the key to success in this new digital playing field.

With investments on artificial intelligence expected to reach €10 billion by 2020, it is evident that the financial sector is very optimistic about these technologies. However, the level of uncertainty surrounding AI remains almost too high to justify this degree of enthusiasm. In a recently published paper, the World Economic Forum warns about how overhyped misconceptions of what AI really is and what it can deliver may undermine the potential benefits derived from the use of artificial intelligence in finance. In contrast with this vision, other experts concur that AI contributes more to prevent and mitigate risks than to generate them.

BBVA Group Executive Chairman Francisco González said to participants in the BBVA Open Summit in Madrid that “data will define the future of the world.” Addressing an audience of hundreds of entrepreneurs, BBVA chairman added that for BBVA, data belongs to the customer.

The Valencian company Emotion Research Lab has developed a system that studies human behavior through facial analysis.

According to Gartner, 38% of companies around the world are expected to use ‘conversational bots’ for customer service and managing corporate applications by employees.

BBVA Compass is far from experiencing an AI takeover of the sort Wikipedia describes, but teams from around the bank, including Mortgage, Finance and Compliance, have discovered the power and efficiency of automation.

In this series of of interviews, BBVA talks with some of those at the cutting edge of designing the future of financial services. The series is about getting under the skin of where, how and why technology will be the biggest game-changer when it comes to how people and businesses bank in the future.

New technologies have transformed the financial sector based on integrating systems that learn for themselves while processing millions of pieces of data. BBVA has pioneered the use of automated systems such as bots to enhance customer experience.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) recently released research aimed at demonstrating the importance of digital transformation in corporate banking. In the research, BCG underscored the notion that for lasting and meaningful digital transformation, banks need to develop a clear vision for the future of banking, formulate a comprehensive strategy of how they will evolve alongside it, and plan their initiatives accordingly.

BBVA Bancomer is the first bank in Mexico to use artificial intelligence integrated with WhatsApp’s technology. Its virtual assistant facilitates the bank’s communication with both customers and non-customer users, answering questions about branch location, how to open an account, and suggestions on how to use the bank’s digital services.

With the proliferation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications across industries, there has been understandable confusion around associated terms, including Robotic Process Automation, Intelligent Automation and even AI itself.

Computer programs that automate processes are already common in banks. They cut costs, improve efficiency, but what is more important is that when combined with artificial intelligence, they open the door to greater advances.

From industry conferences to the headlines of the trades and in boardrooms around the world, the term “Artificial Intelligence” – or AI – is all the rage in financial services.

Big data and artificial intelligence (AI) are among the most discussed subjects of our age.  Terms such as machine learning and deep learning are gradually becoming part of our daily lives. Increasingly, a wide array of economic sectors, including banking, is taking advantage of the potential offered by these exponential technologies to improve customer experience  and offer a more relevant catalogue of products and services.

The future of the financial sector lies in its seamless integration into all sorts of devices. Biometrics, APIs and chatbots… there is mounting evidence that we might be in the early stages of the new era of  everywhere banking.

Gesturing to the mint colored typewriter on the table, BBVA US Director of Risk Technology and Productivity Amory Booher said, “Technology has a lifecycle with a start and end date. For instance, the computer changed how we interacted with typewriters. Similarly, artificial intelligence and cognitive capabilities are changing how we interact with computers. We don’t know if these technological advancements will be as significant as going from the typewriter to the computer, but it’s incumbent on us to understand how these technologies are being applied so we can use them to make our lives better.”

Thanks to machine learning, chatbots are already becoming much more than a mere “always-on” tool used for interacting with the bank.

Artificial Intelligence’s greatest advances have yet to come, but the combination of big data with machine learning algorithms has already yielded benefits to the financial world daily operations.

With the creation of this engineering company, home to 1,200 technology experts, BBVA seeks to expedite its technological transformation.

“Hi, how can I help?” They are only five simple words, but there was nothing simple about what followed when Google presented Google Duplex at its recent I/O conference recently. Google Duplex is an ‘intelligent’ AI-led voice assistant tool that is capable of executing simple voice calls, such as making restaurant reservations or hairdresser’s appointments. It sounded so realistic and human that the person on the other end of the line in each demo was seemingly unaware that they were speaking to a machine.

Fintech expert Chris Skinner shared the stage with Carlos Kuchkovsky, CTO New Digital Businesses at BBVA, at Desafío Ingenia, where they debated the arrival of technologies such as artificial intelligence, the importance of data and new entrants in the financial services market.

Amid the apparent decline of physical shops, new technologies are offering new opportunities to future consumers who will continue to visit stores, but with the help of artificial intelligence on their smartphones.

Artificial intelligence is here to stay. In recent years it has opened the way to different areas of our lives, reaching what were previously unknown territories. This is not a single technology, but rather a set of construction blocks that act as catalysts for major advances, which is why BBVA is committed to an innovative approach based on data science and artificial intelligence to boost its capital markets business.

Today technology is taking giant steps forward and has become a fundamental part of our daily lives. Non-stop and increasingly powerful innovations provide us a huge array of new opportunities that are only a click away. One example is artificial intelligence, a domain that has extended into the financial field, becoming an agent of change, capable of revolutionizing a large part of the world’s financial markets.

Along with the promise it bears, artificial intelligence also brings with it a number of risks that need to be kept in mind and addressed. What measures are data scientists taking to avoid information fed to machines from being incomplete or biased?

Big technological companies and some banks such as BBVA are already using artificial intelligence (AI) in their products and services. However, the revolution that comes with this new technology has only just begun. At a conference organized by the IESE Business School, Ricardo Forcano, Global Head of Talent and Culture at BBVA, set forth six key issues that companies should bear in mind when adapting to this new environment.

Digital banking offers both customers and clients alike massive potential. The accessibility, control and extra insights being a digital banking user can deliver are huge, and for BBVA it’s a model it can use to help people make better, more informed decisions.

A report by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) studies the degree of readiness of different countries ahead of an ever increasing presence of  technologies such as robotics and artificial intelligence. The study includes a series of in-depth interviews with experts in different fields, among them, Elena Alfaro, Head of Customer Solutions Analytics & Open Innovation at BBVA.

The spread of artificial intelligence will have positive and negative effects. In order for the former to outweigh the latter, companies, politicians and social groups should gave some thought to this and act accordingly.

On Tuesday, April 17, a panel of fintech professionals, investors and entrepreneurs gathered at BBVA Open Space, BBVA’s innovation hub in the heart of Madrid, to attend the first edition of BBVA Open Talks in Spain, and try to answer a question that is becoming increasingly relevant in a context marked by artificial intelligence:  “Are we aware of how we make decisions?”

BBVA to invest $50 million into Sinovation Fund IV, a Chinese venture capital fund run by Sinovation Ventures and led by Dr. Kai-Fu Lee.

Kai-Fu Lee, founder of the venture capital fund, Sinovation Ventures, is as popular in China as Elon Musk is in the west. With 50 million followers on “China’s Twitter,” the social network, Weibo, he was dubbed by Wired as the indisputable rock star of China’s technology scene.

We need to talk about artificial intelligence (AI), and not because of the hype surrounding it, but because it is all around us. Without noticing, in one way or another, AI has become a part of our daily lives, and this may be just a hint of what’s to come in the future. Alan Turing pointed out that that at one point, machines will be able to simulate human thought and that’s where we should start.

What happens when an artificial intelligence system recommends a movie or a restaurant? Or a financial product?  To what extent can an algorithm get to know people? These and many more questions were raised during the presentation of the BBVA’s Data and Analytics project ‘RecSys, a recommendation in the era of machine learning’, which brought together experts from diverse fields (cinema, design, law and gastronomy) to discuss how society is changing with the arrival of these technologies.

What happens when you choose a restaurant on the Internet? Or when you want to buy a book? Or find a song? Or get hooked on a new series?  BBVA Data & Analytics in a new item for dissemination explains how the different recommendation systems used by Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify work and how they will extend beyond the consumer and entertainment sectors.

IBM, Microsoft, Google, Amazon… It may not seem like it, but corporate juggernauts are not the only players working to take AI to the next level. ‘Startups’ from across the world also have a lot to say in the future of smart machines.

BBVA Open Talent, the world’s biggest fintech competition, will this year mark its tenth anniversary by working with more start-ups than ever before.

Find out more and register for Open Talent 2018 here.

Which technologies will mark the development and protection of our digital identity? It seems that biometry and blockchain could be the keys that will set the future of our identity in the web and will help protect us.

Digital identity is the online version of an individual’s physical identity.  It consists of all of the individual´s personal data that is available online —not just an email or physical address, but also pictures, banking info, shopping preferences. This identity is not uniform, as we share different attributes in different platforms. In other words, we don’t share the same type of information on LinkedIn and Facebook, for example.

The “proptech” companies and the most innovative financial institutions are already offering services that improve the customer experience in the real estate sector.

In a fast-paced world, Swiss financial institutions are well-prepared to lead the transformation of the finance industry, particularly in private banking, where they are a clear reference in the world. The combination of accumulated experience, talent and availability of capital are decisive factors to facilitate this change.

The head of the BBVA Data & Analytics’ Edge team, José Antonio Rodríguez-Serrano, who coordinates the innovation area in BBVA’s center of excellence in data science, shares his insights into five key questions to understand the implications of this exponential technology in different economical sectors and spheres of society.

Deep Learning techniques are providing amazing results on several Machine Learning fields, but training a complex deep neural network on a large dataset can take a significant amount of time. Therefore accelerate training of Deep Learning models is really crucial, but also challenging.