Automating Need Processes with RPA

An outline of the use of RPA in Contact centers.   A natural place because the customer establishes themselves as needing help.    But its use goes far beyond, to most any process.  Also clearly useful in an attentive assistant system, once its established the customer needs something.  See previous piece on Google moving in this direction.   Inserting need solution within need statement.

How is Robotic Process Automation in Contact Centers improving Customer Experience and Driving Profitability?   By Mitul Makadia - in CustomerThink

With the emergence and advent of RPA, enterprises are starting to see major growth in terms of savings and scaling of overall operations, however, when it comes to contact centers or call centers, robotic process automation offers invaluable advantages by providing solutions to challenges based around service, process & technology.

Customer satisfaction is a huge KPI for any business and call centers play a key role in shaping the success of that KPI. CSRs face immense demand to grow overall revenue by upselling & cross-selling, delivering fast, personalized and effective service – all while meeting high first call resolution and low average handling time goals. Yet, they happen to work with technology that slows them down and requires them to work with a myriad of slow & complicated applications while they speak with customers.

Although Business Process Management plays its part, the high levels of repetitive tasks within contact centers can only be circumvented through call center automation for better employee efficiency, customer satisfaction, and profitability.

Take a look at how Robotic Process Automation in Contact Centers is improving customer engagement and streamlining processes –  .... "

Attentive Assistant Makers Patent their Leverage

This article in yesterday's NYT discusses how companies who have attentive sytems, like Amazon and Google, have pending patents that describe how they can take advantage of what they hear.   Yet the companies involved usually deny that what is heard is retained.   What are the implications for privacy, and who is responsible?

Hey, Alexa, What Can You Hear? And What Will You Do With It?
By Sapna Maheshwari ... in the NYT on 3/31/2018 

( May require registration)"

Building Branded Voice Experiences

Building Branded Voice Experiences  In Adage.

In 2017, more than 24.5 million voice-based devices will be sKnow   By Dan Cripe.  In Adage.
hipped to consumers -- effectively quadrupling from just 6.5 million in 2016. And as adoption continues to explode, the technology itself will continue to evolve and grow more advanced.

For advertisers, this is a huge opportunity. Voice-assistant technology unlocks a new form of "always-on" interaction between consumers and their favorite brands. It opens up an instant, hands-free and frictionless dialogue right in your own home, without having to keep a mobile device constantly at your side. As this technology becomes ubiquitous, brands will try to monetize their audiences through "voice-native" ad experiences.

But as with any new and emerging marketing channel, meeting the opportunity is easier said than done. .... " 

Alexa as the End of Smartphones?

Had never thought of it quite this way. overall a big challenge.  Mobile is still convenience.  Also not enough about the attentiveness of such systems.  Voice/conversation in intelligent dialog is still crude.

For Amazon, The Future Of Alexa Is About The End Of The Smartphone Era
With touch-screen devices like the Echo Show and Echo Spot, Amazon is trying to upend a decade of smartphones, notifications, and apps.    By Jared Newman in FastCOMpany

Picture a hypothetical future in which Amazon’s Alexa renders your smartphone unnecessary.

You tap the “good morning” button on your bedside Echo Spot, and it displays the day’s forecast as the blinds open and the bedroom lights fade on. Downstairs, the Echo Show in the kitchen displays a reminder about your doctor’s appointment at noon, and alerts you to a single urgent email: You’ll have to join a conference call as soon as you get into the office.

In the car, you press the “commute” button on the Alexa-enabled dashboard, which queues up your favorite music while steering you around a traffic jam, and after work, Alexa relays another reminder to your car, telling you to grab milk on the way back. At home, you swipe through a list of restaurants on the Echo Show to make a reservation for the weekend, check in on your folks via video chat, and finally sit down to relax. With one more buttonpress, the next episode of your favorite show starts playing on the Fire TV in the living room.

Far-fetched as it seems, this is the kind of scenario Amazon wants to create as its Alexa assistant migrates from smart speakers to touch screens. Instead of making users wade through a sea of apps to get things done, the goal is to create a new kind of computing that’s simpler and less distracting. And while voice will be the foundation, there may be plenty of times where you use Alexa without speaking at all.   

“The tenet that we believe in is that voice is a simplifier,” says Miriam Daniel, Amazon’s head of product management for Alexa. “And once you design voice actions, then go back to a touch action, you’ve actually removed a lot of friction because you’ve started at a different baseline.” .... ' 

Cisco Adds a Spark Conferencing Assistant

Said to be a result of Cisco's acquisition of MindMeld earlier this year.  Makes sense, now will it add a level of attentiveness to a conference and do supporting searches and create to-do lists?

With Spark Assistant, Cisco adds voice-activated A.I. to videoconferencing   By Matthew Finnegan 

Cisco envisions a phased rollout of Spark Assistant, a new service designed to end some of the pain out of setting up office meetings. ... " 

See continually updated and curated  list of virtual assistants.

Cortana Home Assistant Review

Extensive look at the just released Invoke Cortana home system to compete with the Alexa and Google Home examples,  I have tested Cortana in a business environment since its release.  Still waiting for some useful examples., even obvious examples for Windows help seem weak.  I would have expected some attentive assistance as well, are they still running shy of the paperclip failure?

Also interesting there is no indication of its reported alliance with Alexa.  Following.  Some have suggested that Alexa could deal with the home side, and Invoke the business.  But it looks here that Invoke is taking the existing successful assistant approach, emphasizing music delivery.  The Invoke system can make calls, and is connected to Microsoft's Skype.

Harman Kardon Invoke review: Cortana isn’t too comfortable in the home yet    Microsoft needs to do some tweaking to make Cortana a better at-home assistant.

By Valentina Palladino in Ars Technica ...

Dash Cams and Autonomous Driving

Had thought before there is some connection between autonomous driving and cameras understanding the context.   Gathering data for autonomous operations.  Here is a development move in that direction.  Also a step towards another kind of attentive interaction, similar to work being done with assistant technologies.    The first step is to precisely sense the relevant context.

Comma AI’s dash cams are a stepping stone to autonomous driving
It’s dash cams for now, with an eye on autonomous driving.
 By Roberto Baldwin, @strngwys  in Engadget

"... Comma AI's latest piece of hardware is the EON dash cam developer kit. The $700 piece of hardware is a camera that also runs apps you'd use while driving, like Spotify and Waze. In fact, it's actually just an Android phone (a OnePlus 3 to be exact) with a custom case and software that taps into the smartphone's camera, gyroscope, GPS and accelerometer. That hardware, coupled with the new Chffrplus app (which is only available on the EON) allows Hotz and crew to distribute consumer hardware that also tracks your driving so it can train its self-driving AI system. .... " 

AI Joins the Meeting

Attentive systems for meeting enhancements.

When AI Joins Your Meeting
By Rowan Trollope  

One of the best things about working at a company with Cisco’s resources is you get to blend fundamental technology research with macroeconomic trends. For example, the inevitable improvement of A.I. and collaboration technology, empowered by the global rise towards building distributed work teams, will lead to a revolution in how A.I. affects teamwork.  ... "

Cortana Predicting Future Travel Plans

Been watching virtual assistants for some time.    The key appears to be getting as many as possible out there,  on many kinds of hardware,  keep them cheap and for attentive use with voice,  something you use every day,  but not as part of your phone and computer,  link it to a few key common entertainment functions (like music), open them to external skill development and keep coming out with new capabilities.  

Cortana has been available for some time now, but I remain unimpressed.  Note I am a satisfied Windows 10 user, always up to date, so it should be an easy sell. It should be linking to all my office functions, building intelligence into their use, but does not.  I spend more time shutting Cortana off than using it.  Still awaiting its implementation on a stand-alone on what looks to be a premium price  a Harman-Kardon device.

Now word is out that Cortana will predict your future travel plans.    Nice idea, but still not something I do every day,  will try it, but suggest you would be better to get it out in many users and developers hands.   Soon.

More of my coverage of personal assistants. 

My Friend Cayla Doll Banned

The 'My Friend Cayla' doll was previously mentioned with regard to US COPPA law.  Possible implications for other attentive listening assistants?    In Engadget: 

" ... German watchdog group the Bundesnetzagentur (Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railway) warns that hackers can use Cayla to steal personal data through an unsecured Bluetooth connection. It's already removed the doll from store shelves, and it's encouraging parents to take precautions.  ... " 

Alexa Wins the Holidays. Implications?

Saw some of this effect myself, got many questions about the Amazon Alexa device, and its comparison to the also heavily advertised Google Home, which I am also now testing.

Retailwire discusses.  Asking if this is a win for Alexa in particular, or the general use of in-home assistants. The latter I think, Google still has the potential to win by driving better data and intelligence.   But today, Amazon has the advantage.

Meanwhile a criminal case has brought up the 'attentive' nature of some of these devices.   Will the consumer accept this apparent erosion of privacy?   Will such a case lead to more caution?    Or does it really change privacy in a world where we search and freely provide information about what we do?

Giving your Assistant a Personality

How much personality does a virtual assistant need to get acceptance from the public?  At what point is it entertainment, engagement  .. even trust?    Usually in a given context.    Shades of the MS Paperclip, which was thought cute,  gave useful information,  but was mostly mocked.  Was even attentive.  It had some personality.

   Differrent too is the claim by Google that  'Google Assistant', will support a human-like multiple stage conversation rather than just bare answers. With the system learning and thus adapting to the interaction.  Thats human-like, more than bot-like.   Not just having pat chosen answers from a database.  .   Seems Google is now hiring an artist to visualize the personality.

Beacons Doubling

Have seen and been asked about a number of applications.   Our environment is becoming more aware, attentive to needs and requests.  This is a form of location aware bots.

Beacons Double This Year, On Way To 400 Million In Market by Chuck Martin
While there will be billions of Internet-connected consumer things ranging from wearables to appliances, one of the most visible objects for marketers still will be beacons, at least into the foreseeable future. ... " 

Mycroft Virtual Assistant Advances to Developers

Mycroft, an always listening virtual assistant:

An artificial Intelligence for everyone?

Challenging to Amazon Echo, Siri, Cortana ...

In Kickstarter development.

Their FAQ addresses some of the questions.

And Blog.

Apr 4, 2016  
Saturday was monumental. We shipped our very first Kickstarter Early Bird Hardware Dev Kit. These dev kits are the alpha Mycrofts ordered by the developers who are helping to make Mycroft a reality. (photo credit Zach Spears) We want to send a big  ... " 
..... 
Isn’t Mycroft just a clone of Amazon’s Echo?
Echo is a great product, but Mycroft has a lot of additional features. Mycroft doesn’t lock you into an “ecosystem”. The platform is open source, so you can access a wide variety of data sources. Mycroft also has more input and output options. It has USB, HDMI, RCA and access to the 40 pin Raspberry  Pi 2 GPIO bus. ... " 

Also an interview in Startland.

Bots as the Path Forward

Out of this weeks developer conference, some more useful thoughts.  We saw this early, but did not have the sensor or AI capabilities to make it work.  But are there enough now?  And why bots? Likely because bots can be said to encompass conversations between people, machines, networks and contexts.  And at different levels of attentiveness.  So start building and testing the blocks needed to make them happen.  See some of our work recounted in the text tag links.

Why Microsoft believes that AI bots are the only logical path forward
By Selena Larson

For Microsoft, the future of communication is bots. The company believes that artificial intelligence will eventually change the way we connect with people, businesses, and our computers. 

At Microsoft’s Build developer conference on Wednesday, the company highlighted a handful of ways its integrating bots into platforms like Skype, and touched on new developments to Microsoft’s personal bot assistant, Cortana. Microsoft also debuted a bot framework that lets developers integrate bots into their applications—similar to the way mobile developers can make apps for iOS or Android, they can now build bots on top of Microsoft’s framework.  .... " 

Forrester on Knowledge Discovery

A long time topic of interest.  You can get the full report from Forrester with Registration.  They cover a number of well known vendors in the space:   " ... In Forrester’s 31-criteria evaluation, they've identified nine big data search and knowledge discovery solutions providers — Attivio, Coveo Solutions, Google, HP, IBM, Lexmark International, Lucidworks, Mindbreeze, and Sinequa — and researched, analyzed, and scored their current market offerings. ... " .

Is it best to think of such discovery as a form of search?  Or should such a system be attentive rather than directed?

Recall just last year I investigated IBM's Watson Developer Cloud and Alchemy.    Which includes more cognitive aspects of discovery.   This ranks high in Forrester's analysis.

I would also again point to local vendor Zakta, which I have worked with as well.  Worth a look.

Google Planning Chatbots in Messengers Leveraging Cognitive AI

I recently mentioned the linking of chatbots and messenger systems.  Recall we addressed this in early assistance systems.   See the Mr Clean tag below.

In Forbes:  Google To Launch An Artificial Intelligence Messenger Service To Rival Facebook M   .... Theo Priestley

" .... According to sources close to the Wall Street Journal, Google is looking into launching a new mobile based messenger service underpinned by artificial intelligence. “For its new service, Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., plans to integrate chatbots, software programs that answer questions inside a messaging app,” the article claims. ...  " 

Chatbots are Back for Services

Google working on a chatbot filled messaging service.  We experimented with chatbots.  And I see that the 'Slack' messaging service claims one as well.   It is a natural place to place a service that interprets interactions and attempts to provide value.   NLP based AI has improved considerably, so it is useful to think of their inclusion in service channels.  An example of an attentive system.  Also an example of a 'UI Free' system.    More to follow here.   Also consider their similarity to Facebook M,  where messages can be passed to humans, or chatbot agents.

Speed of Marketing Automation

Consider in addition attentive or analytical methods to detect needed intervention.

Traveling at the speed of culture: can marketing automation keep up?
For successful brand campaigns that emerge based on real-time reactions to culturally relevant events, marketing automation capitalizes on these moments by driving consumer engagement.
Our latest marketing meme, driven by "war rooms" and 24/7 trendspotting teams, has data-driven marketers using insights to create memorable customer experiences that are linked to topical, cultural moments. These are not just a brand promise and not only singular interactions, but a combination of several relevant moments of truth (or MOTs) - the kinds of engaging moments of truth popularized by Google in 2011. Each touchpoint is personal, customized, and responsive of the actions and interests of the individual. ... " 

Governance, Risk and Compliance

Gartner discusses,  especially about the key foundations.  (Details require Gartner Sign in). This is a very big topic,  clearly related but also thought of separately.  Especially risk, which I have always thought of as a portfolio of possibilities, from day to day pings to debilitating black swans.   All should be attentive interactions, based  on internal data, external conditions, and predictive trends.   Architecture should support both discovery and remedy.