Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the technology behind the automated messaging of speech-enabled applications that offer human-like interactions. In other words, conversational AI can communicate like a human being. The tech recognizes speech and text, is able to identify multiple languages and responds in a way that mimics human conversation.
Communication is important in any business, whether it’s between employees or from the business to a customer. Within each of these touchpoints is an opportunity for increased efficiency and a better understanding of what’s working and what isn’t in your business. You see, we’ve reached a place machines are able to understand the human intent behind chat messages and produce human language to respond.
Conversational AI is drastically changing how customers interact. By 2021, 15% of all customer service interactions will be completely handled by conversational AI, which is an increase of 400% from 2017. If thoughtfully deployed, your conversational AI chatbot can be configured to collect data on the backend that helps you steer the business to what people actually want, not your best estimate.
How does a conversational AI chatbot actually work though? Glad you asked! It’s a collection of technologies that work to create conversations that improve over time. Conversational AI chatbots actually need to be “trained” on datasets in order to have a baseline of understanding before they are released to the public. In its simplest form though, there are five key components to this technology:
- The application receives either written text or spoken sentences from human input. For spoken words, ASR, which is the technical term for voice recognition, makes sense of the words and converts them into text.
- The application then must try to decide what the text means. It uses Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to determine the meaning.
- The application then forms the response. Using Dialog Management, it will build a response based on its understanding of the intent. The response is converted into a conversational format using Natural Language Generation (NLG).
- The response will then be given either in text or speech.
- The application also has the ability to learn and improve over time (not just at the outset with the training dataset), in order to deliver more concise and correct answers. For you, this also means that the investment in a conversational AI chatbot continues to pay back itself in higher quality and more data.
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Conversational AI chatbots deliver customized, highly-intelligent solutions that are designed from the get-go to provide next-level customer or employee experiences. They require a detailed specific process and the aid of specialized consultants to ensure the tech is put to use correctly.
The benefit of these chatbots is that they continue to learn, improve and deliver value without needing to recode or improve the technology. Translation: the investment upfront will continue to pay you back over the years that it is in use.
However, there is also a group of chatbots that do not use the advanced and ever-learning techniques of conversational AI. Many DIY chatbot platforms use a much simpler approach and have a database of expected inputs, each with a predetermined output response.
There is no detailed “learning” and “improving” process as the chatbot goes into use. DIY chatbot platforms are great for simple FAQ or customer query routing applications because the answer to the question remains the same. These chatbots are often referred to as decision-tree-based chatbots because that’s the extent of the backend technology.
DIY platforms are inexpensive and quick to implement, but you may need to spend money down the line to improve your chatbot as required. Because the bots are so simple at the outset, the use cases per bot are limited, and the quality of the deployment is not as high, so you may find that your end users aren’t happy with the solution, meaning more time and money to adjust and re-deploy the bot.
Executives are increasingly looking for creative and effective ways of obtaining data to drive business decisions. The conversational AI chatbot is a relatively new avenue to explore. The technology can be used to collect valuable data about customers and/or employees.
On top of that, conversational AI chatbots can even deliver analytics and custom data dashboards when set up with the help of experienced consultants. You’ll save time and money on data collection and analysis, while also improving efficiencies and customer experience.
You can use all the data you can get your hands on to get a leg up on the competition. With a strategically implemented conversational AI chatbot, you can gather data and put it to use quickly. As an added efficiency bonus, it’s an effective way to make personalized conversational experiences scalable.
The fastest route to reaping the benefits of this technology? A team of trusted consultants who can identify the use case tailored to your greatest need.
Are you interested in learning more about the features of conversational AI chatbots? Get in touch with a Chatbot Consultant today to have your questions answered!
