According to a 2018 survey by Instituto Maria da Penha, every 2 seconds, a woman is a victim of verbal violence in Brazil. And that extends to female virtual assistants. Such as BIA, the Bradesco bank artificial intelligence, the biggest bank AI in the world. In the past five years, BIA has been communicating with over 80 million customers all across Brazil. But unfortunately, among the more than 1.2 billion interactions she has already had, there are many moral and even sexual offenses. We had to put an end to that situation.

According to data from Instituto Maria da Penha, every 2 seconds, a Brazilian woman is a victim of verbal violence. And that extends to female virtual assistants. Just like what happens to BIA, the Bradesco bank artificial intelligence, the biggest AI of a bank in the world. BIA has been communicating with over 80 million clients all across Brazil. But unfortunately, among the more than 1.2 billion interactions she has already had, there are many moral and even sexual offenses.

To put an end to this situation, we used the offenses received by BIA to our advantage, by updating her protocols so that BIA could answer in a firm and direct way. And thanks to the exponential potential of AI, she could respond to thousands of attackers at once, unlike human intelligence. And the more insults she received, the better she learned to fight harassment.

This is a learning-based campaign where insights from each step fed into the next step.

That is why we decided to start with a massive campaign, launching a video presenting Bia's new responses, broadcast it on TV and in digital. With that, we impacted men and women, talking to potential victims as well as potential aggressors. This massive step served as “bait” that attracted a new wave of offenses in the midst of the interactions.

With that, BIA was able to learn more and more, offering new insights and answers. And, to qualify the debate, we invited experts and influencers to talk about the subject in live sessions and podcasts, in a campaign phase more focused on women and men in line with social agendas.

And, once again, we used the insights collected, this time in the live sessions and podcasts, to continue the campaign.

For BIA's new response guidelines, we have established that she should respond like a real, empowered woman. To that end, we have adapted Natural Language Processing to a direct and non-subservient approach. The big difference is that, unlike organic intelligence, Bia is capable of responding to thousands of insults at once, generating insights and new protocols from each of them.

After deciding that, we aired a TV and digital campaign presenting BIA’s new responses. Impacting men and women talking to potential victims as well as potential aggressors. This massive step served as “bait”…

You could feel the change in the tone of BIA's answers. And they were put to the test. In just the first couple of days, there was an increase in interactions by an incredible 70,000%! We knew that many of these new interactions would bring on a new number of offenses, so we prepared BIA for that. For each new insult, new insights and response protocols. Bia was getting better and better.

Then, we impacted the target with live sessions and podcast episodes to qualify the debate. The insights of this new phase served as the basis for the last phase of the campaign, which featured pieces of display and content media.

The best thing is that all this learning was not restricted to the virtual world. The new answers from BIA were also extended to human intelligence, and Bradesco assistants across Brazil received updated response guidelines to fight harassment.

The project went beyond significant numbers and left a legacy: the pioneer spirit of offering a socially responsible vision of AI to the financial industry. With that, Bradesco categorically joined the fight to change the way real women are treated in our society.

The chain reaction was huge and even negative interactions were used as learning assets for Bia. It got 70,000% more interactions – mostly via mobile - and amongst them 513,180 offensive messages which led us to 513,180 new and bold answers. Inside the bank, BIA’s firm answers gave life to a new response protocol for 100,000 employees across the country.

We impacted 115 million people and reached over 200 millions views, making our film the most watched video on YouTube during the campaign period. Artificial intelligence from other segments joined the conversation, increasing the outreach of our message.

And most importantly, our campaign was recognized by UNESCO, creator of the Hey, Update My Voice movement, as “an important step towards promoting human rights and the Sustainable Development Goals within the context of AI.”