Virtual Agents

 Virtual Agents, not commonly mentioned these days.   Adding 'intelligent' implies some goal, directive.  Typically at the individual agent level.    When we often built these we  constructed them at a level where they represented elements like consumers. Behaving similarly.  Driven by data. 

7 Key Industries Being Transformed by Data Savvy Virtual Agents  in SmartDataCollective

Big data has become very useful in recent years, which has led to the inception of virtual agents.

There are a number of new fields that have opened up due to recent advances in big data. Big data has played a huge role in the evolution of business development. One field that has emerged as a result of new developments in big data technology is the virtual agent.

A Better Way to Model Data

There are a number of new fields that have opened up due to recent advances in big data. Big data has played a huge role in the evolution of business development. One field that has emerged as a result of new developments in big data technology is the virtual agent.

Intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) are attractive to businesses in dozens of industries thanks to their convenience and their AI capabilities. The already growing market got a boost when many businesses went wholly virtual during the COVID-19 pandemic

Companies needed to figure out how to offer top-notch customer service while still keeping teams lean and productive. Virtual agents help create a seamless customer experience while empowering human employees to work on pressing tasks that need the human touch.

The overall IVA market is predicted to grow 34% by 2027, and it was valued at $3.7 billion in 2019. Here’s a look at some of the industries this growing technology is transforming.  ... '

Google Updates DialogFlow

Seeing augmenting capabilities as virtual agents.   Might also be a means to best think of such agents connecting to human agents.   Makes since in many kinds of service systems.   See ISSIP, which I am part of.

Google updates Dialogflow AI engine to help customers create better virtual agents   By Mike Wheatley, SiliconAngle 

Google LLC today debuted some important updates to its Dialogflow, the main technology that powers its Contact Center AI service for automating interactions with customers in call centers.

Dialogflow is a conversational artificial intelligence engine used to create virtual agents that can understand and respond to all manner of queries from callers, using both voice and text as a medium.

The main update today is a new “Dialogflow Mega Agent” in beta test mode that increases the number of “intents” available to virtual agents by up to 10 times, to 20,000 in total.   ... "

Virtual Agents

A broader take than chatbots, more addressed to solving specific customer service issues.    We used the term in loose combination with agent-models to deliver goal-specific assistants.     Was always important to have very specific goals to drive their actions.  Usually using simulation style prediction.   But we often used simpler methods when appropriate.    The definitions online vary.   A number of vendors now talking this are covered in this article.

No, IBM is not the only relevant player in virtual agents
  by Matt Marshell

Last month, IBM General Manager of Data and Watson AI, Rob Thomas, told VentureBeat that IBM was the only major enterprise provider in the red-hot area of virtual agents.

Virtual agents are software that can chat with customers through text, voice, or web chat. “There really are no big players, except for us,” Thomas said at the time. He called the rest of the virtual agent providers “fireflies,” because they are small and there are so many of them..... "