Chatbots.org Business News

Lenovo leverages noHold technology as a way for consumers to find the most relevant answers they need in one place; Single Point of Search.

Top companies in the security software industry are leveraging Virtual Assistants to help protect users from various scams, while diverting thousands of customers away from the call center. 

The wide spread adoption of mobile, social, and E-commerce has businesses and consumers more worried than ever about cybersecurity and privacy. Major security breaches have caused distrust (Sony, Target, JP Morgan Chase), and Internet scams remain an easy way to steal account data and personal information (IRS impostors, social media scams, email viruses). Every year, cyber-attacks are increasing in volume, financial loss, and sophistication. Gartner sees an upward trend, estimating that the “global cybersecurity market will grow from $67 billion in 2013 to $93 billion in 2017” (TechCrunch).

noHold announced the release of a new feature that will transform the way humans interact with AI, it is called Flexible Procedure Guidance. This cutting-edge technology expands on the Virtual Assistants ability to simply guide users through a set of static procedures. It takes self-service a step further by intelligently understanding what information is given by end users, providing flexibility to where the conversation begins.

noHold’s Call Center Virtual Assistant (CCVA) is revolutionizing the way call center agents interact with customers. Already, thousands of agents are experiencing the benefits CCVA offers. Industry leaders and experts alike agree that Business Process Outsourcers (BPOs) will benefit from introducing automation/artificial intelligence to their call centers.

Virtual Assistants have to the ability to integrate with live chat, and work together to enhance a company’s customer support options.

noHold’s live chat connectors are a set of open API’s that link noHold Virtual Assistants to any live chat application. The integration of the two provides a way for companies to better support their customers, while getting them most out of their investments.

First, the end user asks the Virtual Assistant a question. The Virtual Assistant will either provide the end user with the correct information (ending the interaction for that customer), or if it does not know the answer, it can provide the option to escalate to a live chat agent. If the latter occurs, the chat log is sent to the live chat agent. This will provide the agent with an understanding of the customer’s need and can address the issue quicker; without the end user having to repeat the problem. Once the live chat agent is available, there is a seamless transition between the Virtual Assistant and live agent within the same interface, improving the experience for the end user.

Do many gamers remember Zelda II: Adventure of Link? It was an excellent fantasy game for the first Nintendo Entertainment System which occupied quite a lot of my evenings in 1989. The Non Player Characters were very basic though - typically a lone villager who hints which direction to head for the next dungeon. The villager kept on repeating the same hint long after I’d moved on. Nintendo’s NPCs are not much better in the latest Zelda instalment Skyward Sword in 2011, despite over 20 years of computer and game development in between.

 
Nintendo’s Zelda series from 1987 to 2011, a huge leap in graphics but not dialogue.

The dream of creating an artificial mind and reveal the mystery of human intelligence has fascinated humans for centuries. Many researchers and scientists have been working in this field even before the term Artificial Intelligence was created in the mid-50s. No wonder, because if you spend a few seconds thinking about the influence this could have on our lives, we realize that our environment can change completely.

Check out the video. Just one of the tools to model anatomical virtual humans. Soon, we’ll be able to have conversations with virtual humans, while ‘undressing’ them virtually, first by taking of their cloths, which is obviously hilarious on its own, but then also remove their skin, and strip their organs. We only need to turn off the ‘pain’ emotion, because else the virtual human would respond like a human who is scalped…

According to Gartner, in a few years 85% of customer-company relationships will be made without human mediation. To reach that goal we need Virtual Avatars to be more intelligent than they are nowadays.

FIONA (Framework for Interactive-services Over Natural-conversational Agents)  is a global online platform for the creation of Intelligent and Interactive Virtual Avatars.

FIONA’s first beta version is going to be launched soon and we are searching for beta testers. If you work on human computer interaction and artificial intelligence, you are 3D Designer, you have TTS or ASR modules, or you create virtual agents, you can become a beta tester. You only have to register in http://www.sparkingtogether.com.

An iPhone 4S buyer is suing Apple for supposed failings in its Siri voice-activated assistant software. The dissatisfied user claims Siri often did not understand what it was being asked to do or would respond with the wrong answer.

In litigation-happy US, these types of class-action consumer suits are common, of course, and the allegations of serious failings in the product have to be taken with a pinch of salt.