At a time where securing and analyzing big data has become crucial, AI is rapidly becoming the tool of choice to make sense of all the white noise. If you have any doubt on the future adoption of this technology, you only have to look at how tech giants are positioning themselves.
News that Google has rebranded its Google Research arm as Google AI speaks volumes. The tech behemoth has been working and investing heavily into AI and machine learning capabilities for some time, but in a digital age where brand image is everything, the rebranding seems a natural step.
To better reflect this commitment, we’re unifying our efforts under “Google AI,” which encompasses all the state-of-the-art research happening across Google.
In the announcement, Google also advised that they have emphasized implementing machine learning techniques in nearly everything they do from computer vision to healthcare research and machine learning. By putting AI at the heart of their plans, the future becomes relatively easy to predict.
The stage was perfectly set for Google’s annual I/O developers’ conference, Google I/O 2018, and the new Google AI branding acted as the perfect teaser trailer. Although where we are heading is incredibly exciting, how far Google has come in a short space of time is equally fascinating.
If we go back in time to last year’s event, Google Home was relatively new, and Google Assistant was beginning to appear on onto non-Pixel devices. The transformation of Google into an AI company appears to be ramping up the pace, but what does this mean to our immediate future?
At I/O 2018 the tech giant unveiled Google Duplex, a new “AI system for accomplishing real world tasks over the phone.” Duplex allows users to delegate a virtual agent to proactively call a local business to handle tasks such as making dinner reservations, scheduling hair appointments, or confirming holiday hours – all using natural conversational language that often is indistinguishable from that of a human. The result of the interaction (e.g. a confirmed reservation for two at 7 PM) is then returned to the human user and assumedly placed into their personal Google Calendar or otherwise into Google’s ecosystem. The system will be available in limited release beginning this summer.
In a post-Cambridge Analytica world having an AI Assistant talk on your behalf without any input will be a little unsettling. The idea of future encounters with fellow humans finishing with the line "I will have your AI call my AI," will equally be uncomfortable to many. But, if Google can get the balance right, we have already witnessed what a game changer it can be.
Watching AI interacting with people naturally and adjusting tone accordingly is something that we have been promoting at IPsoft for some time now with Amelia. Google's latest demo allowed mainstream consumes understand how it will impact their world and also highlights how quickly technology is progressing.
It's not just about how the world of tech is evolving but also about how Google is openly stating their intention to influence its future. For these reasons alone, many would agree that the rebranding exercise is much more about PR than anything else. But, how it will alter the digital landscape is something that businesses will have to monitor carefully.
A few months ago, there were numerous reports about companies adding the word ‘Blockchain’ to its name, and their share price rocketed 500%. Does this mean that we will begin to see the emergence of more “AI-driven” or “based on AI” claims from providers that don't actually use the technology?
Purposely incorrectly labeling a solution to mislead businesses who want to jump on the AI bandwagon could oversaturate the marketing and confuse decision makers. If you do not perform due diligence when looking for the next business solution, you could quickly end up with just nothing more than a series of buzzwords.
However, no business can afford to ignore AI. Virtual assistants, immersive experiences, and robots are no longer science fiction; the future is now. Technology is already transforming how employees and customers interact across a global digital community. For business leaders, the allure of increased productivity and efficiency will be impossible to resist too. Google’s fascinating demonstration piques the imagination as to what functionality this technology might soon bring about.
In the meanwhile, another AI giant IPsoft, that sells exclusively to the Enterprise, has been exploring the frontiers of human-AI interactions for nearly two decades. IPsoft’s state-of-the art digital colleague, Amelia, intelligently connects users to enterprise systems using natural conversational language to accomplish complex tasks.
For example, in a recent program, IPsoft collaborated with a home security company to teach Amelia to proactively call customers when a disturbance is registered in the house. She first confirms the customer’s identification through a series of questions (e.g. mother’s maiden name) before notifying them of the issue (e.g. movement on the second floor), and then – if necessary – works with them on next steps (e.g. contacting the local authorities).
While Google Duplex presents some very intriguing promise in the consumer space, Amelia is being implemented by global enterprise customers across a wide spectrum of verticals. Like Amelia, Duplex’ fluid natural-language conversation is the result of established technologies like Artificial Intelligence Markup Language (AIML) and episodic functionality. Amelia’s brain, however, also boasts a powerful process memory, which allows her to follow an individualized process flow like walking a customer through the complexities of the mortgage application process (this functionality is ideal for rapid compliance in regulated industries like banking and healthcare). She also features an industry-leading emotional intelligence, which allows her to identify the emotional state of human users and alter her interactions accordingly.
IPsoft works with companies to teach Amelia to dynamically navigate users through sustained, complex business procedures like researching, applying, and purchasing insurance. While Duplex is specifically designed to handle brief, constrained examples (like making basic appointments), Amelia interacts with humans for 10-, 20-, 30-minute conversations, or beyond. Since she is tasked with collecting and utilizing so much vital personal data (everything from bank account information to health records), Amelia has been designed to be deployable on-premises, which allows her clients to maintain complete control of their customers’ data instead of relying on a third-party cloud service.
The AI space is a fascinating and rapidly evolving one which will reimagine how the world works.
#AI, #Amelia, #GoogleDuplex, #Conversational, #GoogleI/O, #GoogleIO
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