On January 18, 2023, Arin welcomed Webio’s Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer Paul Sweeney and CTO Ben Waymark to WebRTC Live to discuss the current status of conversational chat and where it is headed in the future. Webio is a Conversational AI orchestration company. They use conversational AI, machine learning, and natural language processing to understand customer intent and blend chatbots and live agent conversation.
Watch Episode #75!
Webio was founded around the time of a shift from SMS to different types of two-way messaging. They focused on credit collections, which seemed to benefit from the non-emotional nature of automated and asynchronous conversation. Webio moved on to handle the entire credit conversation.
Other topics in the first half of the episode included:
- Using machine learning in automated conversation to collect and tag information in order to make decisions on that data through pattern recognition and come up with an appropriate response.
- Handoffs between Conversational AI and human agent
- Differences between consumer and enterprise use of Conversation AI
- The social contract implications of certain airlines moving to all chat customer interaction.
- Bringing product names and discovery of products into your chat box through modeling.
The role of video interactions in Conversational AI
Discussion moved on to video, including the role of video interactions in Conversational AI and use cases where it is beneficial for a live agent to use video. High end purchasing, showcasing cars, and live commerce (Instagram, TikTok) were among those mentioned. Studies show there is a higher conversion rate when there is interaction with a live agent, and higher again when you add in video. It increases trust in the conversation.
In video, Conversational AI can sense gestures and gauge confidence in buying. This helps knowing when to re-engage, move to live agent, etc. Also discussed was the integration of various AI services with video (i.e., integrating attention detection in a video chat using TensorFlow) and using background removal to hide your surroundings.
Chat GPT
What is the role of ChatGPT and large language models in Conversational AI and how does it change customer service interaction in general?
Check out Arin’s recent blog post, “The Future of WebRTC … According to ChatGPT“!
Questions
- How difficult is it to implement Conversational AI in multiple languages? What about localization within a language?
- How many chatbots can you run with different intents?
- What more can we expect in terms of Conversational AI empathy and engagement in the future?
- Augmented reality will blend with chatbots in the coming years and with mobile apps. Is customer support using AR and chatbots a possibility? Is this one, two, or five years away? (Apple Glass, Instagram, Snapchat)
Watch Episode #75!
UP NEXT! WebRTC Live #76 with Enable Security’s Sandro Gauci
Wednesday, February 15 at 10:00 am Eastern. Register today!
Do you have a topic that you would like to see discussed on WebRTC Live? Let us know by emailing news@webrtc.ventures.
Never miss an episode of WebRTC Live, our webinar series hosted by WebRTC.ventures Founder and CEO, Arin Sime. We feature the latest use cases and technical updates to this increasingly popular coding standard for live video. Watch past episodes on our WebRTC Live page, our YouTube channel, and on our blog. Better yet, use the form in the sidebar to join our mailing list and be among the first to hear about upcoming episodes and the latest news in WebRTC!
