Bots, as we know them, have gathered a lot of attention in the recent past. A few days ago, a family member walked up to me and enquired about my career. I mentioned that I was working on creating a bot platform called Engati which allows individuals to build and create chatbots in a few minutes. The distant relative had a curious look and asked me as to what a bot was.
The curiosity around the term ‘bot’ in today’s world is very similar to the one around the term ‘cloud’ a few years ago – everyone has heard about it but does not necessarily understand what it could do for them. The future of the bot is to make itself relevant and simple to everyone that needs it.
An artificially intelligent bot is a software program that we can train to think, and act based on a user input or otherwise. We extensively use Bots today either as chatbots or automation bots that help enterprises enhance end-user experience by reducing processing errors, handling multiple queries simultaneously and finishing tasks quickly. All of this in definition seems unreal and 2050 like. Let’s take a look at key areas that bots will evolve in to enhance our productivity and make life simple.
Are chatbots the new apps?
We tout the mobile and mobile apps to bring in a digital revolution. With access to personal and enterprise data at your fingertips, mobile apps helped improve one’s productivity. But there are over 4 million mobile apps across app stores and every smartphone user has over 40 apps installed. Looking up apps and finding the right one has reduced productivity over time. Imagine digital assistants like Siri, Google Assistant etc., and conversational platforms like WhatsApp, WeChat, Telegram etc., taking over the responsibility of apps. Wouldn’t life be easier if one could pay all their utility bills in a single conversation or a click? Or if you could get information on leaves and compensation by asking a bot instead of searching for it?
Bot conversations that make sense
Users of ai chatbots have often complained that bots respond to queries but seldom make sense. Inadequate training data and lack of intelligence make the bot vulnerable to several scenarios, thereby reducing user experience. Though enthusiasts have often leveraged the terms ‘AI’ and ‘machine learning’ to make the bot intelligent, it is the availability of AI and ML technologies within the chatbot platform that help the bot make sense. Concepts like Entity & Intent Recognition, Context and Sentiment Analysis being made available by default within the bot will help solve user queries and perform tasks effectively. Imagine the bot automatically recognising that you had a long day and providing you with options to order your favourite food, playing your favourite music or calling up a special one!
Can chatbots increase employee throughput?
Enterprises today employ an increasing number of GenY and Z, a set of generations that are not inclined to work on repetitive manual tasks that undermine their intellect. The undermining leads to loss of productivity, thereby inducing avoidable errors, lesser throughput, and higher churn rate.
We can train and deploy bots for free and is also able to perform repetitive tasks with minimal errors and higher throughput. We can use the workforce that we employ to manage the bots and process exceptions that involve decision-making. Imagine an insurance company that employs a team to process claims. The team works on client KYC, and claim verification takes about 10 working days to process claims. With bots, this team can bring down the claim processing time to under 3 days.
What are Voice chatbots?
Voice as an input medium is catching up with an increasing number of folks adopting Amazon Echo and other digital assistants for their daily chores. Can we expect bots to gauge your mood and provide personalised experience as compared to a standard response? In regulated scenarios, voice acts as an authentication mechanism for the bot to pursue actions. Voice as an input adds sophistication and ease to do tasks quickly, thereby increasing user experience.
Bots have an interesting future, with the market potential and adoption increasing exponentially year on year. Having said that, the onus is on the BOT builders to educate the market, improve on the capabilities and drive higher consumption along with it.
At Engati, we are ensuring that the technology reaches out to as many businesses as possible. So, they can manage their customers and employees better. When they deploy the bot into their business, they will get things done in an easier and faster way. There are many features to explore. In fact, the business has complete liberty and transparency to build its own bot. It's a DIY platform that businesses can use for free. Multiple upgrades are available as well.
To know more about Engati, feel free to reach out and the we'll help you with it!
