Smart home assistants are amazing. Alexa is really good at shopping. Google Home delivers an impressive voice experience. Still, the illusion that you are interacting with a general AI only lasts as long as you stick to questions that are confined to domains covered in the training model (e.g. search queries, the weather, audio content, and clever conversational Easter eggs incorporating pop culture references). Still, once you get over the novelty of voice interaction, the limits of domain-specific AI become clear. Paradoxically, the best consumer-friendly AI on the planet has not been trained to resolve tech support tickets (as of this writing). Try to engage either Alexa or Google Home with a challenge the heuristics were not trained to address, and you’ll get the familiar response.
“I’m sorry, I can’t help with that”
Even fundamental technical questions leave any off-the-shelf virtual assistant stumped. “OK Google, I can’t log into my Gmail account!”; “Hey Alexa, how do I set up my smart phone so I can talk to you on the road.” They’re good, but in 2020 they’re still not that good.
What’s interesting about a conversational AI service desk experience, is that the technology not only exists, it is already running in production! If you are wondering why this is news to most, the answer is simple. Most people could care less that consumer voice assistants still don’t come close to interacting as a general AI, which depending on its definition could be anywhere from months to decades away. Virtual assistants are popular mainly because they address a fundamental human modality of human interaction: Voice.
When we first introduced our conversational chatbot venture Konverso.AI, market feedback was frustrating. No doubt, anyone would jump at the chance to resolve IT issues quickly. But when we launched, the Virtual Assistant technology we developed to resolve support tickets only worked as a text based chatbot. In 2020, most humans don’t mind texting other humans. But many still feel more comfortable communicating with voice. The intuitive experience of interacting with a Virtual Support Assistant is critical when you just need to get your ticket sorted and get back to work.
AudioCodes and Konverso partner to offer a new IT helpdesk voicebot
Voice technologies have been around since the days of Alexander Graham Bell. A teenager may look at a rotary phone like the century’s biggest mystery. But picking up the phone and saying “Please help me with my problem” is a universal experience that transcends language, geographies, and even generations.
That’s why connecting Konverso’s IT Service Desk Virtual Assistant to AudioCodes solutions is such a hand-in-glove fit. Human users continue interacting with the helpdesk in the same way over traditional PSTN or Unified Communications infrastructure. Voice input is converted from speech to text and then routed to Konverso’s NLP engine using AudioCodes Voice.AI Gateway, which then converts the generated text back into a voice signal that reaches the end user.
The result: An intuitive voice-enabled virtual assistant experience that is set to disrupt the helpdesk automation market estimated to reach $17B by 2024.
Reach out to learn more about the Konverso and Voice.AI AudioCodes partnership
About the Author
Guest post by Bertrand Lafforgue, CEO of konverso.ai
As Konverso’s co-founder and CEO, Bertrand Lafforgue leads strategy, sales, strategic partnerships and business development. Konverso.AI develops vertical chatbot technology powered by artificial intelligence, enabling Service Desk teams to deliver an augmented support experience to millions of employees worldwide. Bertrand brings to Konverso.AI over 15 years‘ executive leadership experience at SAP and Microsoft, where he inspired multi-cultural sales teams to deliver high performing results across EMEA.