#120 - Zor Gorelov, CEO of Kasisto - On democratizing financial services by making it human again

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to enable banks of any size to grow meaningful and trust-led relationships with their customers in a world that’s increasingly digital. My guest is Zor Gorelov, Co-founder and CEO of Kasisto

Zor Gorelov has over 20 years of experience in the software industry. He was the co-founder and CEO of SpeechCycle, a market leader in cloud-based contact center optimization solutions for the telco market. SpeechCycle was acquired by Synchronoss Technologies (SNCR). Before that, Zor founded and ran BuzzCompany.com, a provider of enterprise collaboration and messaging software, which was acquired by Multex.com (MLTX). He has held multiple engineering and product management positions at Microsoft and Computron Software. His interest in speech and natural language technologies dates back to the early 90s when he worked at Bell Labs.

And this is where his latest company comes in: Kasisto. The company was founded around the mission to create technology that gives financial institutions the power to produce Humanizing Digital Experiences that build valuable relationships.

This triggered me, and hence I invited Zor to my podcast. We explore the challenges banks face as their relationship with their customers becomes very transactional and what needs to be done differently to continue to grow valuable and engaging relationships. We also discuss Zor’s vision to create a software business that’s worth making a remark about.

Here are some of his quotes:

Our long-term belief is that the conversational user interface is the most natural, most intuitive way for consumers to interact with computers.

The vision of the company is to be able to enable better financial decision-making using conversational AI. The idea is to democratize financial services. And make sure that everybody gets the best possible advice.

We believe it is so important because as consumers shift to digital, the relationship between banks and their customers becomes very transactional. People go in and check their balances, pay their bill, look up some transactions, and then they move on. And the whole concept about, humanizing that experience is to add intelligent conversational systems that can help the consumers better understand and better manage their money, but also help banks better engage those users on the channels as well.

During this interview, you will learn three things:

1. Why designing our software solutions for trust is underrated – consequently, more often than not, trust erodes, rather than increases.
2. How we can create human/machine combos that deliver value larger than the sum of its components.
3. That true value is not coming from replacing an old function with a new gimmick. It comes from creating net new experiences – enabling things that users are not able to do already.

For more information about the guest from this week:

• Zor Gorelov
• Website: Kasisto