IBM Startups wants to automate call centers

Last week, IBM added several new features to the Watson Assistant, improving contact center automation. These startups are part of the US company’s strategy, which aims to integrate its natural language processing technology into these platforms.

The role and use of AIs in call centers continues to grow as businesses are allowed to serve more customers. According to Canam Research, 78% of these centers in the United States plan to use AI over the next 3 years.

Watson Assistant is a type of business Alexa, Virtual Assistant based on AI and developed by IBM. The purpose of this assistant ” Help businesses build customer loyalty, transform customer experiences and keep data private and secure .

IBM in partnership with IntelPear

These new products were launched as part of the collaboration between Inteliper, a communications site provider. This California company provides analytics services for voice, news, API and businesses.

New features improve and facilitate the configuration of Watson Assistant voice agents, as well as transfers to a human agent.

For businesses with a call center system, Watson Assistant can now quickly set up voice tools and phone numbers for virtual agents. However, if a company already has such a system, IntelPier can link it to the Watson assistant. This is made possible by the IntelPier Atmosphere Communications Pass service.

Facilitate customer experience

Launched in beta in December 2020, the Watson Assistant search capability is now available. This feature allows you to retrieve short answers based on the IBM research question-and-answer method. This allows a virtual agent to provide an answer in a few words from long sentences. It can also provide context for where each response came from, and help update virtual agents.

A new feature of the Watson Assistant is the ability to retrieve short answers based on research skills and question-and-answer method.
Image: IBM.

Another feature called Agent App was introduced. The Agent App implements real-time transcription of conversations between the client and the virtual agent, using IBM’s voice detection models. Agents can resume a conversation with a client that has stopped with a virtual agent.

⁇ An important challenge facing almost all businesses today is to better communicate with all customers and employees across all channels. Daniel Hernandez, General Manager, Data and AI at IBM Venturebeat. Many businesses and applications already use the Watson Assistant in their call centers. It has been specific to Rhode Island State since October 2020, and has been used to answer thousands of calls about Covid 19.

Artificial intelligence is called upon to transform more human beings into communication centers. According to research by Harris Poll, 46% of customer calls are already automated on US sites. A number that could rise to 59% by 2023. Some services already offer virtualized agents that follow a man, such as Google Duplex. This technology allows you to make calls through Google Assistant, but with human voice and not robotic. So, already in 2019, only 25% of Google Duplex calls were made by humans.