How Much did I Spend?

Money is emotional. It can make people feel safe or anxious and everything in between.

But no matter what form it takes, money — and the emotion it provokes — is part of daily life for nearly everyone on Earth.

In that way, money is also a connecting thread for humanity. And that’s exactly why finding ways to demystify how we talk about it is so crucial.

One of the latest innovations bridging gaps between people and money are voice-enabled technologies like Amazon’s Alexa.

Embracing the opportunity of using natural language was a big driver for our work at Capital One in developing a skill for Alexa, which we launched at SXSW earlier this year.

Customers who’ve enabled our skill are asking Alexa how much money they have in their checking and savings accounts, and how much they still owe (and when) on their credit card, auto, or home loan.

And as of Wednesday at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, customers now can ask “How much did I spend?” to hear their recent spending history at more than 2,000 popular merchants, by specific date and over time.

This is another step we’re taking to have natural conversations about money with customers, wherever they are — even if it means standing in their kitchen just wondering about what’s up with their money, or because they’re actively trying to manage their money with more confidence.

We also chose this latest addition — “How much did I spend?” — because that’s how people ask this question in real life. They want an answer quickly so they can get on with their lives, without having to jump through a million hoops or manually add up line-item transactions.

We’ve got a huge opportunity to make Alexa conversations more fully interactive, and a big part of that is being able to move away from traditional bank speak and embrace the natural language people use every day to talk about their money.

In fact, we’re so passionate about this topic that we’re hosting a conference in San Francisco called Humanity.AI, a single-track conference chock full of talks about keeping humanity at the forefront of interactive experiences enabled by voice technologies and artificial intelligence.

The event features speakers who are inventing systems that enable powerful human experiences way beyond banking.

And we want you to be there, too. Use promo code “humanityindesign” to save 20% when you register. And if you are a Capital One customer with an Alexa-enabled device, try out our latest skill and give “How much did I spend?” a spin. (PS We’d love to hear what you think of it.)