Gerente Original — Virtual Banking Manager

Banco Original is a Brazilian digital bank with a growing customer base but a widening gap against competitors — fewer features, weaker customer support, and little to keep users from splitting their financial lives across multiple accounts. The central question: what would it take for Original to become customers' primary bank? This project, developed through a full design thinking process, resulted in Gerente Original — a virtual banking manager concept that brings personalised guidance, smarter service delivery, and specialist investment support directly into the app.

Research started with desk research and competitive benchmarking across Brazil's major digital banks. The findings were clear: fee exemption had become a commodity, and insurance, loans, and rewards programmes were now standard. The one area still lagging was service quality — specifically, the lack of a human or intelligent touchpoint for customers who needed help. A CSD matrix helped structure the open questions; a ten-question survey validated the assumptions. Interviews brought the frustration into focus: users described long waits for dispute resolution, impersonal bot interactions, and the absence of specialist support for investments. Four hypotheses emerged from synthesis — expanding the service portfolio, improving chat response times, introducing AI voice assistance, and creating a virtual manager. A prioritisation matrix then narrowed the focus to the hypothesis with the highest user impact and clearest path to implementation: Gerente Original.