IBM has introduced the Watson Virtual Agent, a cognitive conversational technology that allows businesses to simply build and deploy conversational agents. These agents, or “bots,” have emerged as businesses look to improve customer engagement, offering customers quick responses to queries and addressing potential issues in real time.
Watson Virtual Agent allows users – from startups and small businesses to enterprise – to easily build and train engagement bots from the cloud, harnessing the power of cognitive technologies.
“In order to begin your cognitive business, you must have cloud, content and compute capabilities to enable conversation,” said David Kenny, general manager, IBM Watson. “IBM is advancing the technologies on the platform in the area of conversation, all with a mission of helping brands transform their customer experience, empowering users to create solutions that deepen engagement and facilitate stronger, more positive interactions.”
Companies like Staples and The Weather Company are embracing the services of virtual agents, relying on deep natural language processing capabilities that can be used to assist consumers.
Staples, the business solutions provider, is using Watson Conversation in their “Easy System” bringing the on-demand world to customers, allowing them to order anytime, anywhere, from any device they prefer. By tapping into Watson, Staples will now offer a “seamless ordering interface” for customers across their ecosystem; whether it’s via their Easy Button, through the app, over Facebook Messenger or with a Slackbot.
The Weather Company has created a bot for Facebook Messenger that serves up personalised weather content, and allows users to receive specific weather information based on individual interests and news preferences.
According to the latest research by Gartner, “by 2020, at least 80 percent of new enterprise applications will make strong use of chatbots.” That same research indicates that, “by 2021, ‘conversational AI-first’ will be adopted by the majority of enterprise IT organisations as the most important new platform paradigm. The ‘conversational AI-first’ meme will supersede ‘cloud first, mobile first’ by 2021.”
Both Watson Virtual Agent and Watson Conversation are offered as cloud-based services, and are available on the IBM Marketplace and via the Watson Developer Cloud on Bluemix.
