Smart machines are transforming everyday technology and disrupting how to think about business opportunities this decade. A gold rush is underway, sparked by improved AI algorithms, new high-performance hardware and big data to consume and understand. Garner explored five sample Cool Vendors and named Creative Virtual, one of the Chatbots.org partners one of them.
The list of Cool Vendors, “illustrative, not definitive”
- Creative Virtual provides virtual customer assistants that graphically communicate the emotional states in the context of a current conversation, improving the perceived quality of the interaction.
- Skycatch’s industrial drones enable and enhance “smarter construction,” “smarter agriculture” and other new digital business scenarios.
- SparkCognition uses pattern recognition and machine learning to detect patterns of potential threats to the Internet of Things (IoT), critical infrastructure and associated services.
- Speaktoit’s api.ai, a cloud-based service delivering speech recognition, natural-language processing, machine learning and speech generation, enables developers to rapidly create conversational interfaces for existing or new applications.
- X.ai has developed Amy, a virtual personal scheduling assistant that arranges meetings using natural-language email dialogues. This is particularly valuable across organizations but also has application within an enterprise.
Why “cool” (according to Gartner)
Creative Virtual was one of the first companies to provide virtual customer assistant (VCA) offerings to the market, in 2004. Over the last 11 years, the company has evolved as technology has matured and the acceptance of VCA engagements has increased.
V-Person is Creative Virtual’s specific VCA service offering. The company has built advanced technologies in omnichannel knowledge management, natural-language processing, integration and VCAs, which help businesses deliver intelligent, personalized customer experiences that reduce email and call volume, build brand loyalty and increase customer engagement at a lower cost per conversation.
Clients are reporting a delivered accuracy of over 90%, contact deflection rates between 20% and 80%, and a feedback loop that improves customer satisfaction. Creative Virtual says it has over 40 customer organizations using its VCA offering. Clients deploy it over different channels, including Web, mobile, social and call center, to answer customer inquiries. V-Person also has the ability to interact via SMS and interactive voice response (IVR). V-Person’s VCA can be deployed in the cloud as well as on-premises.
The product can also deliver personalized answers by matching customer profiles with answer properties. This technology was recently launched and seems a significant step forward for virtual agent technology, with V-Person the first VCA offering to implement it. With that, Creative Virtual continues to lead the VCA market.
