Glia acquires Finn AI to provide banking virtual assistants

New York-based fintech Glia recently acquired Finn AI, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot platform for banks and credit unions.

With the acquisition, Glia aims to make virtual assistants “mainstream” for financial services companies.

According to Glia, this unified solution will enable financial institutions to provide customers with a ‘seamless digital experience’ across both virtual and human assistants, boosting customer satisfaction while driving new operational efficiencies. 

"This marks a new chapter for Virtual Assistants: Verticalization with Scale. Generic 'one-size-fits-all' bot providers have largely failed to meet the full potential of conversational AI, leading to the emergence of vendors focusing on specific industry verticals. Until now, none of the financial services bot vendors have been able to achieve widespread adoption on their own," said Dan Michaeli, co-founder and CEO of Glia.

Scaling technology to meet customer demand 

Founded in 2012, Glia’s digital customer service (DCS) solution enables web and mobile experiences with digital communication choices, on-screen collaboration and AI-enabled assistance.

Glia claims to have partnered with more than 300 banks, credit unions, insurance companies and other financial institutions worldwide to help improve customer experience. Earlier this year, the company announced US$45mn in Series D, which brings Glia's total funding to US$152mn and its valuation to over US$1bn.

"Glia's large and rapidly growing customer base, combined with solid financial backing to accelerate the pace of innovation, immediately brings that scale. Finn AI is a strong fit for Glia based on its technology, market approach and company culture. We are thrilled to welcome the Finn AI team to Glia," Michaeli added. 

Making banking easier with AI-powered chatbots 

Leveraging AI and banking expertise, Finn AI builds conversational banking platforms for financial institutions so their customers can manage their money and improve their financial literacy. Finn AI has partnered with major FIs including ATB Financial, BECU, United Federal Credit Union, EQ Bank, Civista Bank, Truist Momentum and more. 

"Our vertical approach and tight integration with Glia helps financial institutions reduce the costs, extensive training and development time typically required for general AI platforms. Now as part of Glia, we will have the scale to deliver automation solutions to the market as part of a seamless Digital Customer Service platform that delivers the best of both self-service and human assistance when and where it is most convenient for customers. With our existing integration and satisfied joint customers, we will hit the ground running. This is an exciting next step in our journey and we couldn't be happier to be a part of Glia" said Jake Tyler, co-founder and CEO of Finn AI.

Glia will maintain and expand the presence in the Finn AI Canada office. The Finn AI leadership team will assume leadership positions within Glia to further develop AI automation and virtual assistant solutions for the Glia DCS platform.