What is Conversational Artificial Intelligence?
- August 24, 2020
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- Polly Dom
- Posted in BusinessFeatured
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Armed with smartphones and curiosity, the customers of today want personalized experiences more than anything else. Due to this change in customer behavior, nothing is as crucial as engaging them with captivating experiences.
And while hundreds of businesses are already investing in breakthrough technologies such as augmented reality, personalized recommendations, and predictive analytics, nothing beats the simplicity and efficiency of conversational artificial intelligence.
So, What is Conversational AI?
Picture a smart assistant that is capable of communicating with customers. What’s more, this smart assistant is also able to understand their requirements and help them get what they want.
Unlike mouse clicks, touchscreens, and endless menus, a simple interaction with conversational AI can fulfill the customer’s requirements much faster.
In simple terms, this would be a type of special artificial intelligence that uses natural language to interact with humans. It allows companies to deliver personalized, automated communication experiences through messaging apps, chatbots, and voice assistants.
Conversational artificial intelligence combines different technologies. These include intent prediction, user authentication, speech-to-text recognition, natural language processing, and machine learning.
The amalgamation of these technologies allows AI bots to learn on the go – for them, pre-programmed decision trees are a thing of the past. In other words, they’re not founded on the simplistic and linear if/then logic. Unlike rule-based bots, conversational artificial intelligence can identify user intentions and contexts, and thus deliver a far more personalized experience.
Instead of having to browse through tons of unimportant info and perform multiple actions, a customer can just ask an artificial intelligence bot to find what they want.
Examples of businesses using this innovative technology include Starbuck’s AI-based ordering system, State Bank of India’s banking bot, as well as AirBnB’s smart algorithm that discovers in-app messaging intents.
If all of this still sounds a bit confusing, have a look at an example here and try chatting with a chatbot in real-time.
Why is Conversational AI Becoming a Global Trend?
There are two primary reasons behind conversational AI’s growing popularity. Not only does it allow businesses to better cater to customer needs, but also to stay relevant in a highly competitive marketplace.
Conversational artificial intelligence can change every aspect of how, where, and when a particular company engages with customers. It allows brands to deliver personalized, intelligent, and superior customer experience.
What’s more, companies using this technology can extend this personalized customer experience across multiple channels, devices, and platforms. In that way, they can easily cater to the entire user base.
Various conversational artificial intelligence solutions can be distributed across different touchpoints – from mobile apps to websites – to establish a seamless customer experience.
The Benefits of Conversational AI Interfaces
Besides the fact that they’re preferred by most customers, there is a number of other reasons why more and more businesses are starting to use conversational AI solutions:
Allows Easy Real-Time Access
Conversational AI allows customers to seamlessly connect with a chatbot by using the channel of their choice. In addition, the risk of information discrepancy is reduced by the conversations being synchronous.
Saves Time
As expected, conversational AI offers fast customer service by providing quick responses. Gone is the neverending process of connecting to a customer support service for generic queries.
Increases Efficiency
Increased customer support efficiency is yet another benefit of implementing one of the conversational AI solutions. Thanks to automated operations, companies don’t have to hire employees who will handle thousands of emails and calls, and can focus on other business functions instead.
Handles the Entire Customer Cycle
By interacting with conversational AI, a customer can complete a transaction in its entirety – from seeking info on a particular product to sharing feedback on it.
Reduces Customer Abandonment Rate
Customers are always intrigued to purchase more products when there’s a persistent communication channel. They don’t have to go through the hassle of dealing with the customer support center.
What’s more, they can pause the conversation anytime they want. And once they decide to resume it, they don’t have to replay the whole process.
Allows Highly Personalized Interactions
By accessing their messaging profiles and learning on the go, conversational AI is capable of identifying individual users. As expected, this allows it to drive highly personalized interactions.
Conclusion
Human conversations are astonishingly complex.
We speak in highly nuanced ways, using wordplay, cultural references, and inside jokes, without skipping a beat. Therefore, for a human to have a quality conversation with a machine, the flow of the conversation needs to have similar qualities – responses need to be natural-sounding, intelligent, and quick.
While not flawless, today’s conversational AI solutions are certainly up to the task. Future iterations of this innovative technology are only going to get better and are bound to change the face of human-computer interaction.