Recently Connected World magazine’s Tim Lindner sat down with the very distinguished Ventura to have a very candid conversation about how he plans on charting a course for noHold straight into the future of the Internet of Everything. What we learned is that what noHold does will at some point in the future touch your lives on a daily basis. It will soon be very transparent to you. All you will see, hear, and touch will be his company’s Virtual Agents.
Introduction:
At the close of 2012, Ray Kurzweil, a well-known inventor, futurist, and founder of Singularitarianism, posted a brief article in his online newsletter entitled “How the Internet of Everything Will Change the World.”
His primary source was Cisco, which at the time was beginning its transformation into a company primarily focused on supplying the infrastructure that would support the explosive growth it forecasted as the world embraced the IoE (Internet of Everything).
Cisco made the statement that “more than 99% of things in the physical world are still not connected to the Internet.” Cisco went on to state that “by 2020, 37 billion intelligent things will be connected to the Internet.” 2020 is less than six years away.
As Cisco defines it, “The Internet of Everything builds on the foundation of the IoT (Internet of Things) by adding network intelligence that allows convergence, orchestration, and visibility across previously disparate systems.”
Like the iceberg, the things we can see, such as connected-smart devices in people’s hands or cars, is just a small part of the whole. The larger part unseen by most is the infrastructure that connects those devices and makes the Internet of Everything work.
It is here, unseen but an important player in the functioning of the infrastructure, “adding network intelligence that allows convergence, orchestration, and visibility across previously disparate systems,” that we find Diego Ventura and his company, noHold, Inc. Recently Connected World magazine’s Tim Lindner sat down with the very distinguished Ventura to have a very candid conversation about how he plans on charting a course for noHold straight into the future of the Internet of Everything. What we learned is that what noHold does will at some point in the future touch your lives on a daily basis. It will soon be very transparent to you. All you will see, hear, and touch will be his company’s Virtual Agents.
The Interview:
CW (Connected World): It is said that the past is prologue, and in that spirit, can I ask you to describe how you came to start noHold 15-years ago?
DV (Diego Ventura): noHold is my second company; my first company was STEFRA Corp. We created a product called Video Control that was bundled with most of the Web cameras of the time. It was a very successful enterprise for us, but it also meant that millions of new customers had questions about our software. I have always been passionate about AI (artificial intelligence), so we thought about creating an Expert System that could answer customers’ questions automatically. They idea caught on and I realized there was the opportunity to create a separate company. I raised $15 million from VCs (venture capitalists) and started noHold.
CW: It would be helpful if you can explain what a Virtual Agent or assistant is and what you sought to accomplish with your virtual-assistant technology since then?
DV: You can think of a Virtual Agent as a Live Chat application, but instead of chatting with a human, end-users interact with an AI. Virtual Agents are typically used to automate the process of providing answers to large groups of people. We work with some of the biggest brands in the world to help them get their customers to the best solutions as fast as possible. Sometime Virtual Agents are deployed to improve efficiencies in Support; other times to increase conversion rates on a Website, by helping prospects find the best product for them. Technically, Virtual Agents come in different flavors; ours happens to be closer to what in the academic world is referred to as an Expert System. Some of the most well-known Virtual Agents are SIRI by Apple and Watson by IBM.
CW: Diego, how would you best describe the differences between your new virtual agent technology for wearables and your traditional technology platform?
DV: There is one fundamental difference. While our regular Virtual Agents draw their information from a Knowledge Base, the others can interact with the devices themselves. The interaction is bidirectional (GET & SET). In some cases the Virtual Agent simply gathers information about the state of the device; in others it actually sends commands to the device to make it do something. For example, a Virtual Agent connected to my wearable device can let me know whether or not I hit my workout goal for the day (GET), or I can record my caloric intake (SET).
CW: It was exciting to see your recent press releases about your push into the IoE (Internet of Everything), specifically the February announcement about the launch of noHold Connect, and the May announcement that you have a working version of a Virtual Agent that is able to communicate with wearable technology. How are the two related?
DV: “noHold Connect” is the technology that provides the ability to connect two Virtual Agents together. What that means is that an end user can start a dialog with one Virtual Agent and if it determines that another connected Virtual Agent can better answer the question, the conversation is passed on to the most experienced Virtual Agent on the topic. You can see an example of this with two of our Virtual Agents that are live at Cincinnati Bell and Dell. Since Cincinnati Bell resells mobile devices from Dell, end users who bought the Dell device from Cincinnati Bell, can ask “Bella” a question about the Dell device. She is able to activate the Dell Virtual Agent and let it answer the question, since it is the most qualified to do so. We call this technology “noHold Connect.” The reason why it is fundamental in providing the human-element experience for the Internet of Everything is because it allows each Virtual Agent to just be an expert at one thing (like controlling one device). Right now, for example, we have two Virtual Agents responsible to control each of two of the most popular wearable devices on the market. We then have a third Virtual Agent we call the Butler, that interacts with both to control the devices. One of the advantages of the Butler is that, because it has knowledge and indirect control of two devices, it also has context and therefore it can provide better advice to the human interacting with it.
CW: “Wearables” is almost a generic term covering a very broad range of smart devices. For which devices and markets do you see the best short-term opportunity for adoption of Virtual Agents?
DV: Everywhere a large group of people needs specific solutions 24/7, on their own terms and without having to sift through long list of answers or long documents. We have seen very successful implementations in the high tech and telecommunications space, but travel, banking, and hospitality are coming along.
CW: What are or will be the critical components of success for noHold’s IoE initiative?
DV: We will certainly continue to invest in our core technology. The NLP (natural language processor), the inference engine, noHold Connect, etc., but a little of the help will also have to come from the outside. Right now connecting to each device requires the creation of a specific connector that works primarily with one device or family of devices. Fortunately companies are getting together to define standards that will make it easier to create one connector that works with multiple devices, even if designed by different companies. The AllSeen Alliance and the Internet of Things Consortium are examples of groups defining such standards. As more companies support the standards, it will become easier for us to build Virtual Agents that can control an ever increasing number of devices.
CW: What will virtual agent technology look like in five years and what will you expect it to do to help people in their lives?
DV: Virtual Agent technology will contribute to make our lives easier. We are at the dawn of a new era where computers will actually help us manage the complexity they have in part created. It will be the best of both words; the discipline and attention to details of a machine, with the personality and sympathy of a human. We envision a world where we will all have a personal assistant in the form of a Virtual Agent. We will be able to interact with it in our own terms and because it will be aware of many aspects of our lives, it will be able to provide better suggestions. For example if I ask the Butler to set my alarm for 7 a.m., he may come back and suggest to set it at 6:45 a.m. after determining that I am very low in gas in my car. This no longer one app controlling your thermostat, but a Butler that can control multiple devices in your ecosystem in a smart and intelligent way friendlier to you.
CW: Well, Diego, you have certainly provided an exciting glimpse of the future. Thank you again for helping our readers understand what Virtual Agents are, and how you and noHold are using them to make people’s lives better. Best of success going forward!
DV: Thank you Tim. It is an exciting time for humanity; we are glad to be part of it.
http://www.connectedworldmag.com/10_2_magazinearticle.aspx?id=MAZ0140609062118790
