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Sales super heroes maintaining your virtual assistant by providing a
team that continually helps it "learn" or expand its
San Jose, Calif.-based magia.ai, an AI company founded scope of work.
in 2016, is an autonomous selling platform designed to
create a human-like shopping experience. The company's Lin Nie, research scientist at Dataminr and user experience
next-generation bots guide store and ecommerce specialist, said Alexa and Google Assistant are embedded
shoppers through decisions, choices and features. Using in consumers' lives, but only for limited tasks. Home
a combination of selling techniques and natural language, automation, which formerly targeted high-end users, is
the virtual assistants help shoppers identify products that achieving mainstream adoption, helping AIs scale, she
fit their preferences and price points. added. Indeed, Juniper Research predicts the world's 2.5
billion voice AIs will rise to 8 billion by 2023.
Sam Vasisht, chief marketing officer at magia, said the
company's digital assistants use up to 27 selling techniques "Regular consumers who aren't pursuing home automation
to build rapport with customers. Their ability to recall may be more likely to do so after purchasing a smart
millions of products make these assistants indispensable to speaker," Nie said. "Voice is an interaction layer for smart
consumers and sales associates alike, he said. "It's difficult home applications."
for retail salespeople to stay abreast of store layouts,
products and inventories," he noted. "But salespeople can Bruce Burke, founder of The Mandalay Group, observed
put on magia's exoskeleton and become superhuman, like that deep machine learning, coupled with AI and
Iron Man, and confidently answer questions and advise integrated neural engines, is moving consumers closer to
customers where to find products." conversational computing. To become truly conversational,
machines must understand the nuances and languages of
Reuben concurred, stating, "It's not about replacing different regions and cultures, he noted.
humans; it's about augmenting them to make them more
powerful." "To move beyond task common commands used by Siri,
Alexa and Cortana, conversational computing will require
Sriram Chakravarthy, chief technology officer and contextual information and other personal nuances of the
cofounder of Avaamo, an AI-driven conversational end user," Burke said. "We are at least five years away from
computing platform, said new voice technology can natural conversations. Devices and software do not have
perform multiturn discussions and execute intensive the knowledge base or the same need and ability to adapt
judgment tasks, just like humans. "These capabilities the way humans do."
can revolutionize business," he added. "Companies can
streamline their service desks and drastically improve Avoid rabbit holes
customer care; insurers can generate quotes in minutes and
health care providers can help diabetics or cardiovascular Chakravarthy urged developers to "put on their business
patients better monitor their health care through a virtual hats" before embarking on AI projects. Think about the
assistant on an app." AI's impact on the bottom line and the everyday problems
it will solve, he said. "Fix everyday business problems and
Context is everything see how it changes companies. These are just as important
as the aspirational aspects of the technology."
Chakravarthy further noted that technology's effectiveness
is directly tied to how data is fed to its algorithms. It's As Reuben reflected on the numerous AI-powered
critical to understand the data, where it comes from and applications that are part of her day-to-day work life, she
what specific set of business processes the end solution agreed that having clear goals has helped her avoid rabbit
will automate, he stated. He recommended taking the holes.
following three steps when implementing AI solutions:
"You know how that goes," she said. "You look for a solution
• Communicate: First, communicate directly with on YouTube, and an hour later you're still watching cat
clients and internal stakeholders about the changes videos. This can happen when you're looking at AI tools
they can expect with conversational AI.
too, because AIs are full of possibility and fun to play
• Use APIs: Second, pay attention to your APIs. For with. If you focus on what you're trying to accomplish, AIs
example, if you work in the healthcare industry can be a powerful way to enhance productivity."
and want your virtual assistant to book medical
appointments, your conversational AI system Dale S. Laszig, senior staff writer at The Green Sheet and managing
should be able to "talk" to a scheduling assistant director at DSL Direct LLC, is a payments industry journalist and content
using an API. development specialist. She can be reached at dale@dsldirectllc.com

• Foster a learning environment: Finally, make sure and on Twitter at @DSLdirect.
you have the right resources for monitoring and

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