Five years of neurocognitive customer experience research presented at Kazan Digital Week
Customer experience, or CX, stands for the overall impressions formed through interactions with a company. A relevant study was discussed during the session Smart CX: Bringing Algorithms and Empathy Together and Measuring Results Effectively.
The session was moderated by Andrey Martynov, Head of the CX Laboratory at AK BARS BANK in Moscow. He also spoke about the bank’s achievements in children’s banking and the role of generative artificial intelligence in this area. The bank has launched a youth debit card and a mobile app with an adaptive interface, and developed a dedicated chatbot called Kibo, “Children are a new audience for us. We are only just beginning to learn how to communicate with them properly. We therefore concluded that the best solution would be to introduce an intelligent AI assistant tailored specifically to their needs and questions. We received very positive feedback after its introduction. Children told us that the assistant was genuinely good. It helps them find answers to questions such as how to save up for a phone, why we cannot print enough money for everyone, and what to study to become rich. Our task is to tailor this resource, our intelligent assistant, to their needs as effectively as possible.”
Asked where algorithms end and empathy begins in customer experience, Martynov said it was important to maintain a sense of proportion, “In my view, we must not give children the impression that an algorithm, a chatbot, or any other system understands them better than a person does, because in the long term this could create far more problems than we can imagine. Algorithms should help strengthen empathy between parents and children. This is precisely the area we are working on now. We see it as the most promising direction for developing our range of children’s products, family banking services, and our children’s mobile app.”
Natalya Kalenskaya, Head of the Department of Marketing at Kazan Federal University’s Institute of Management, Economics and Finance, delivered a presentation entitled Neurocognitive Studies of Customer Experience Among Users of Banking Products. It covered the findings of research conducted by KFU’s Department of Marketing from 2021 to 2026, identifying key issues and trends in consumer behaviour within the financial technology ecosystem.
Kalenskaya explained that modern customer experience should be built not only on product functionality but also on emotional engagement. She also discussed integrating research with practical approaches, noting that practice provides cases for further study and testing. Echoing Martynov’s remarks, she described engagement with children as a promising area, “Today, we are talking about services that are not merely intuitive, but emotionally understandable. We know perfectly well that our hearts can race for different reasons: anxiety, fear, indignation, or, conversely, joy at the sight of someone or something we love.”
She highlighted the five-year collaboration between Kazan Federal University, Ak Bars Bank, and industry partner NeuroTrend, which has resulted in the establishment of the NeuroLab (Neuromarketing Research and Education Laboratory).