What is Conversational AI :
As our world becomes more digital, Conversational AI is being used to enable communication between computers and humans. Conversational AI is the set of technologies behind automated messaging and speech-enabled applications that offer human-like interactions between computers and humans. Conversational AI can communicate like a human by recognizing speech and text, understanding intent, deciphering different languages, and responding in a way that mimics human conversation.
Applied Conversational AI requires both science and art to create successful applications that incorporate context, personalization and relevance within human to computer interaction. Conversational design, a discipline dedicated to designing flows that sound natural, is a key part of developing Conversational AI applications. Though chatbots have gained popularity (and a fare share of bad name), conversational AI solutions can be offered over both text and voice modalities and hence various channels and devices that offer support these modalities – from SMS and web chat for text modality to phone call and smart speakers for voice modality.
The best Conversational AI offers an end result that is indistinguishable from could have been delivered by a human. Think about the last time that you communicated with a business and you could have completed the same tasks, with the same if not less effort, than you could have if it was with a human. That’s Conversational AI at its highest quality.
How does Conversational AI work?
Conversational AI uses various technologies such as Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Natural Language Processing (NLP), Advanced Dialog management, and Machine Learning (ML) to understand, react and learn from every interaction.
What are the main challenges in Conversational AI?
Conversational AI faces challenges which require more advanced technology to overcome. You’ve most likely experienced some of these challenges if you’ve used a less-advanced Conversational AI application like a chatbot.
1. Constantly changing communication
From languages, dialects, and accents to sarcasm, emojis, and slang, there are a lot of factors that can influence the communication between a human and a machine. Conversational AI systems need to keep up with what’s normal and what’s the ‘new normal’ with human communication.
2. Security and Privacy
Especially when dealing with sensitive personal information that can be stolen, Conversational AI applications must be designed with security in mind to ensure that privacy is respected and all personal details are kept confidential or redacted based on the channel being used.
3. Discovery and Adoption
Although Conversational AI applications are becoming increasingly easy to use and normalized for the general population, there are still challenges that can be overcome to increase the number of people who are comfortable using technology for a wider variety of use cases. Educating your customer base on opportunities can help the technology be more well-received and create better experiences for those who are not familiar with it.
