Edelweiss General Insurance Launches An Industry 1st, AI Voice Bot for Automated Motor Claim Registration, Powered by Yellow.ai

• First end to end AI Voice Bot for the GI industry
• Can handle queries from garage representatives for inbound claims processing without any human intervention
• It can converse in three languages, thus eliminating barriers associated with time, language, and geographical coverage. Adding more languages is also in the works

Digital Insurer, Edelweiss General Insurance (EGI), has launched an AI Voice Bot, a digital transformation initiative to enable its customers intimate motor claims in a convenient and seamless manner. This end-to-end AI Voice Bot is the first in the General insurance industry in India, and is powered by Yellow.ai, the world’s leading next-gen Total Experience (TX) Automation Platform recently recognised in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Conversational AI Platforms.

This conversational AI Voice Bot, available in Hindi, English and Hinglish, will enable real time registration of claims, 24-7. It has been currently introduced for garage owners and will be offered to all customers as well in a month or two. The AI Voice Bot will assist EGI’s garage representatives in easier, faster and hassle-free registration of claims. There is also no wait time unlike a normal call to the customer care. Once you dial in, the AI Voice Bot will guide you on the claim intimation process in real-time.

In addition to being a claims assistant, the AI Voice Bot can answer questions raised by the garage representatives, thereby delivering a holistic and superior experience. While the AI Voice Bot successfully handles queries, right from discovery to providing the claims registration number without any human intervention, it also seamlessly escalates complex queries to EGI agents, collaborating the combined intelligence of humans and AI. The AI Voice bot is also capable of tackling the issue of background noises that one usually experiences in garages, thereby creating an elevated and consistent experience.

Commenting on the launch, Shanai Ghosh, Executive Director & CEO, Edelweiss General Insurance, said, “Our vision is to make insurance easy, friendly and transparent and our AI Voice Bot is another step in this direction. We are happy to partner with Yellow.ai in this digital transformation journey. While the Bot will definitely offer easy, seamless, and superior experience to our customers, it will also enable and empower our distribution agents and partners to be more efficient and effective and enhance their capabilities.”

Raghu Ravinutala, CEO and Cofounder, Yellow.ai said, “We are delighted to implement an AI Voice Bot for Edelweiss General Insurance. With varying dialects in India, our technology allows tailoring speech recognition models to adapt to users’ speaking styles, expressions, and unique vocabularies, and also to accommodate background noises, accents, and voice patterns. Our voice bots have superior context based intent identification to help understand queries better, provide insights from customer interaction that constantly improve bot performance and understand consumer behaviour.”

The AI Voice Bot is optimised for advanced query handling that includes post-processing for proper nouns such as names, area names and driving license numbers. It also supports seamless integration between Yellow.ai and EGI’s APIs. For instance, once the claims are registered, real-time emails and SMS are sent to both the Claim Service Office (CSO) and the customer, simultaneously sharing the details of the claim registered. Moving forward, the Voice bot capabilities will be further enhanced to include more languages and use cases, covering a wider range of customer service functions.

Edelweiss General Insurance has been introducing many tech driven, industry first, innovative solutions. Some of them being:

1. Edelweiss SWITCH (sandbox product) - India’s first digital, on-demand motor insurance product, enabling pay-as-you-drive
2. Health 241 – ‘’first of a kind’’ health insurance product, where if the first year is claim free, you get covered free for the second year
3. Open API Gateway, a portal is aimed at self-assisted API consumption by partners.
4. IPOS (Integrated Partner On-boarding Solution), a fully digitised solution aimed at completely automating the onboarding process for EGI’s existing and prospective partners.
5. BOLT- Remote survey for motor claims with instant settlement
6. OTP based Health Insurance onboarding
7. Realtime digital NPS providing instant feedback from customers

Yellow.ai is enabling organisations such as EGI to increase their sophistication and usage of automated voice assistants for regular use. Voice-based virtual assistants can be deployed to handle inbound and outbound calls, across real-time telephony and synchronous voice channels. Through the platform, enterprises can build AI-workers to self-serve, support, sales, marketing, commerce, HR and IT on-demand, across chat, email, and voice channels.

About Edelweiss General Insurance

Edelweiss General Insurance (EGI) is a full stack Insurtech and one of the fastest growing players in the Indian non-life Insurance market. It is a digital Insurer that aims to transform insurance making it easy, friendly and transparent. Its digital platform powers fantastic customer experience, innovative solutions and efficient service delivery. It started operations in 2018 and has already won over 10 awards for product innovation and its digital platform. It is India’s first cloud native insurer and the first insurer to launch an open API platform. It has over 2 million active customers and a growing omni-channel distribution on digital rails. It has presence across key digital marketing places and partnerships with over 19 digital partners and customers including PolicyBazaar, Phonepe, Ola, ClearTrip, Dunzo, Intermiles, PayNearby, Instakart, Pazcare, etc.

Consumer insight driven strategy coupled with technology-powered execution is what differentiates EGI in a competitive market. It aims to deliver innovative solutions to customers by leveraging data, analytics and proactive market sensing.

Qandle Launches Beta Version of Easyboard, AI Onboarding Chatbot

Qandle –an HRMS startup has launched the beta version of EasyBoard, an AI enabled onboarding chatbot, to make new hire onboarding a seamless experience for the candidates and corporations, both.

The brand has been launching technologically advanced HR tech solutions to support organizations in the new normal. In the last one year itself, the brand has launched various solutions to address different facets of the HR department in organizations across all sectors, including - Remote Work Toolkit, Touchless Attendance, Qanbot (HR tasks chatbot), PeoplePro (Free community for HR professionals) etc.

The new solution EasyBoard shall enable faster onboarding of employees and will include auto verification of employees’ bank accounts and ID proofs and address proofs like PAN card, Aadhar card etc. which new hires will be able to upload in a click. The backend AI allows the solution to read all the documents and fill in details automatically, and even verify them. It doesn’t even require the new hires to download an app, and all of these can be achieved simply through a web browser which can work on a desktop as well as on any smartphone.

“One can imagine that when a fast growing organization is hiring people in bulk, it becomes extremely difficult to manage all the data and documents, and verify each. In addition, it results in a lot of time wastage for the new hires. Now, it is even more challenging when many organizations have gone remote. We built this when some of our clients reached out to us and explained the problems they were facing with respect to providing an awesome experience to their new hires, while ensuring all the onboarding compliances are met. We aim to impact over 500 clients with the new offering in the next few months,” said Mr. Himanshu Aggarwal, Co-founder and CTO, Qandle.

Due to the new work-from-home culture, it has become even more challenging to verify and onboard new hires. Easyboard by Qandle takes care of all the manual admin work of onboarding and guides the hires through the entire process, verification, management etc. in the form of an interactive chatbot. The solution will not just save time, but also take everything online, cutting on carbon footprints, and is available in multiple languages.

Currently, the beta version is out which is available to 5 Qandle customers, while the final version is expected to be available within the next three weeks.

About Qandle

Qandle, an All-In-One HR tech Platform, launched in 2018, is a young start-up focused on redesigning the HR software from the employees’ perspective. Founded by Chayan Mukhopadhyay (CO-Founder and CEO) and Himanshu Aggarwal (CO-Founder and CTO), Qandle distinguishes itself as a comprehensive solution that covers the entire gamut of HR activities – from hire to retire. Qandle is a modular and extremely configurable solution for HRs looking to deliver the next-generation experience to their employees. Qandle serves over 550 clients spread across 30+ countries.

Punjab Launches mSeva WhatApp ChatBot, Built by eGov Foundation

In this new normal, when everyone across the country is maintaining social distance and trying to avoid outdoor activities with a goal to fight against the pandemic, the Hon'ble Chief Minister of Punjab, Capt. Amarinder Singh launched the mSeva WhatApp ChatBot on 27th August 2020 for the citizens of Punjab, with a mission to provide better accessibility, flexibility, and a contactless way to avail services from their local governments.

Using this mSeva WhatsApp Chatbot, which is built by eGov Foundation on its DIGIT stack, filing and tracking is as easy as chatting on Whatsapp. This innovative service has currently been piloted in 4 Municipal Corporations - Phagwara, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, and 1 Municipal council - Zirakpur. As soon as the pilot is successfully completed, the citizens across 167 ULBs in Punjab will be able to use the WhatsApp Chatbot to file and track the status of the reported greivances.

With more than 400 million users, India has become the largest market for WhatsApp globally. PMIDC and eGov Foundation are working together to expand the slew of services on mSeva WhatsApp bot, and in the next 3-4 months, the citizens across Punjab will also be able to view and make payments of their water and sewerage bills via mSeva WhatsApp Chatbot. 

In the launch event, Shri Ajoy Sharma, CEO, PMIDC stated, "Public grievance redressal in a time bound manner is of paramount importance for the Govt of Punjab. As a part of the 'Digital Citizen Services First' approach, we digitized  citizen-centric municipal services since 2018 and more than 8 modules can be accessed via web portal and mobile app. Extending the services, we now aim at the resolution of civic complaints with the widely used messaging platform, WhatsApp. Driving a paradigm shift from clicks to personalized seamless conversations will result in improved citizen experience and  foster belongingness among citizens with speedy resolution of issues." 

Citizens can access the chatbot either by giving a missed call or sending a Whatsapp message to +91-8750975975. Once the chat is initiated, the chatbot will guide them to file their complaints from a list of grievances for their specific location, attach images to support the complaints raised and track the status of each of the complaints, thereby eliminating the need to visit the ULB office in person or logging in to a web portal and navigating through various screens. As citizen engagement demands ease, accessibility, greater responsiveness, and accountability from local government, mSeva WhatsApp bot will truly bring the government closer to the citizen at the convenience of their phone.

Viraj Tyagi, CEO, eGov Foundation expressed, "It has always been our endeavour to offer improved convenience and inclusive access to  citizens in  towns and cities across India.  Our open technology platform - the DIGIT Urban Stack - is powering this ambition and we have partnered with Punjab Govt over the last two years for a state wide deployment. Now, we have introduced citizen services on WhatsApp, one of the most popular instant messaging applications in the world. Citizens simply chat on mSeva WhatsApp bot  to raise and track their grievances, without visiting an office or downloading an app. It is convenient,easy to access, transparent and secure. We plan to introduce additional services like billing & payment of municipal charges in near future."

About eGov Foundation

eGov Foundation was established in 2003 by Nandan Nilekani and Srikanth Nadhamuni to partner with city administrators in their drive to leverage the transformative power of technology for the better quality of life in our cities and to make them sustainable. We are joined by Nilekani Philanthropies, Omidyar Network and Tata Trust as our long term benefactors.

In order to address the need for scale and speed eGov has built a DIGIT platform- a Public Digital Good that can be used by Governments, Enterprises, and civil society to co-create and deploy locally relevant solutions. Over the last 17 years, we have partnered with more than 1000+ towns and cities across India and more than 12 Cr Citizens have benefited from our platform. And know that there is much more to do to build a thriving, digitally-enabled ecosystem in all 4400+ towns and cities in India.

OYO Introduces 'Yo! Help', its 24x7 Realtime Chat Assistant; Enables a Seamless Customer Experience

While preventive lockdowns have helped countries flatten the curve and break the chain, it has also impacted industries across the world, including travel and hospitality. COVID-19 has disrupted the way people go about their daily lives due to social distancing norms, thereby paving the way for digital and virtual offerings. Consequently, technology-led businesses have the potential to come out stronger. Understanding this, as India takes a step towards normalcy, OYO, the world's leading hospitality chain introduced Yo! Help, a 24*7 real-time chat assistant for guests with a valid booking across OYO hotels and homes globally. Through this technology, OYO is set to enable seamless experiences throughout the consumer journey, right from the post-booking to post-checkout or cancellation phases.

Technology is deeply embedded in OYO's DNA. During such times, when the world is adapting to newer ways of living alongside the virus, digital and tech-based solutions play a significant role to minimize human contact and maintain social distancing norms. Therefore, with Yo! Help, OYO aims to enable guests with self-help and self-serve mechanisms so that they can seek answers to their queries at any time, and anywhere through a single tap of a button. Some of the key USPs of OYO's Yo Help! are end-to-end automation and high-speed resolution which is completely built in-house with the ability to detect fraudulent cases.

OYO's realtime assistant, Yo! Help is educated with secure data to increase its intelligence and empathy quotients. The company has also worked towards gamifying responses in an effort to make consumer interactions more human and less transactional. The company invested nearly six months building the technology; thereby, ensuring its effectiveness and productivity. Additionally, through the company's deeply integrated tech stack, it will also launch projects to personalize guest interactions rather than a neutral request-response mechanism. As a global organisation, OYO's chatbot is built to provide different experiences for consumers across different countries, considering every geographys unique challenges. Yo! Help leverages Natural Language Processing (NLP) to decrease the interaction time and bubble up relevant queries from the guests based on freely written text. This technology is also capable of personalising experiences for guests on OYO's platforms.

Commenting on the introduction of Yo! Help, Anil Goel - Group Chief Technology & Product Officer said, "Typically, the hospitality industry is known as one of the most high-touch industries, relying mainly on human connections, be it the warm greetings at the reception, tikka on arrival, check-in, check-out formalities or room service among others. With COVID-19 spreading rapidly across the globe and social distancing becoming a way of life, the hospitality industry is at a pivotal point of transformation. The pandemic is ushering a 'digital-shift', which is an opportunity for us to rebuild differently and strengthen our focus on tech-enabled experiences. We are, therefore, focussing our efforts on enhancing processes and doing more with less. This is a once-in-a-lifetime situation that can leave us completely transformed."

He adds, "At OYO, we believe in continuous improvisation as we aim to go the extra mile for our consumers. With Yo! Help, we are enhancing customer experiences and at the same time helping our business reduce costs without compromising on the customer service delivered to the end consumer. Over the past 6 years, we have built the world's largest technology-driven hospitality chain and through this journey, consumer feedback has been very important to us. We have used our guest feedback to understand what's working best and the areas that we could improvise. With Yo! Help, we have been able to resolve queries across India within an Average Handling Time (ATH) of 01 minute as compared to a call center's ATH of 8-10 minutes. In terms of escalations, the average Turn Around Time (TAT) is 5-7 mins vs 2.5-3 hours, depending on the nature of the issue faced. Having said that, we also believe that human connection is important and we'll continue to enable guests to chat with our agents in case a query needs to be resolved beyond self-serve mechanisms."

OYO guests can access the Yo! Help on their existing OYO app or OTA booking through the following steps:

OYO's self-help tools can be reached on the link www.oyorooms.com/yo

The guests will receive the link to OYO's realtime assistant in their booking confirmation SMS as well as via other channels

The guests can open the link on a mobile web browser or desktop and enter a valid booking ID and check-in date to authenticate their booking. OTA guests can use the Booking ID provided by the OTAs including Booking.com, Agoda, MMT and GoIbibo

Once authenticated the guests can use Yo! Help to resolve their queries through an automated answer or by directly engaging with an OYO chat agent

Recently, OYO also rolled out the 'Sanitised Stays' initiative which involves the process of digital check-ins and check-outs through the app, offering consumers the flexibility of digital payments and sharing online feedback. In order to improve the efficiency of operations on-ground during the pandemic, OYO also announced multi-lingual support for Krypton, a mobile audit application in 12 languages for its asset partners. This will enable property managers from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities in India to operate the app in their native language.

About OYO Hotels & Homes
Opening its doors in 2013, OYO Hotels & Homes, a young hotel startup, today is the world's leading chain of hotels and homes. OYO today operates in over 800 cities in 80 countries, including the U.S., Europe, U.K., India, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Japan.

For more information, please visit www.oyorooms.com.

Huawei's New AI Assistant 'Celia' Uses Hybrid Approach to Resolve Consumer Queries

Huawei Consumer Business Group India has introduced a new intelligent virtual agent called 'Celia' to enrich consumer experience. The feature is made available as an integrated part of the company's service app, Support as well as on the website, consumer.huawei.com/in, ready to assist Huawei India users anywhere, anytime. The AI powered virtual assistant responds to the key phrase "Hey Celia" and has high ability to field questions and address customer queries.

This smart assistant is available 24*7 and supports quick troubleshooting with seamless transition from chat to human agent, without any delay in processing new information request. Celia has the capability to provide guidance in buying a new phone, warranty queries, locating device's problem and completing all prerequisites before sending the device for repair.

Celia's arrival underlines Huawei's commitment to deliver the latest technological advances to consumers across the globe. It comes with a multi-function interface, multi-round operation and multiple styles of answers making it easier to understand. The answers are displayed in the form of text, links, collection, pictures as well as GIF and JPGs. Celia provides precise answers which could be on detailed parameters and specifications and transfers the chat to online human agent on request.



"We constantly strive to introduce breakthrough innovations to our consumers. Through Celia, we want to add value and provide convenience by resolving personalised queries. It empowers users to control functions with the help of an intelligent assistant. Huawei will continue to offer resilient AI offerings to enhance consumer experience," said Huawei Spokesperson.

Celia takes a step-by-step route to give users the most efficient solution to their problems. The user needs to tap on the scenario and related answers pop up. Both Celia and human agent is always ready to help the customer whenever required, providing convenience by making access to information and services simple, quick and frictionless.

Celia is now available on Huawei's official web and support application.

About Huawei Consumer BG

Huawei's products and services are available in more than 170 countries and are used by a third of the world's population. Fifteen R&D centres have been set up in the United States, Germany, Sweden, Russia, India and China. Huawei Consumer BG is one of Huawei's three business units and covers smartphones, PC and tablets, wearables and cloud services, etc. Huawei's global network is built on almost 30 years of expertise in the telecom industry and is dedicated to delivering the latest technological advances to consumers around the world.

Wearables, Sensors and Chatbots to Help Fight Covid-19 Post Lockdown

Many industries across the world have shut down normal operations and others have significantly scaled back activities in efforts to keep workers safe and prevent COVID-19 from further spreading. But as various regions experience a “flattening of the curve” and in some areas, a decrease in new cases, companies are now beginning to evaluate how to progressively and safely return employees to their various places of work.

As the COVID-19 virus can spread through asymptomatic people who might not realize they are sick, researchers stress that testing and health monitoring is a crucial step as we gradually start the process of resuming our daily work routines. To gather that necessary data, technology is going to continue to play a pivotal role in providing us insights on the current state of our own health.

Numerous practices and technologies are being explored as ways aid in understanding employee and workforce health:

1. WEARABLES

Wearables and smart watches have become popular because they inform us about health vitals like biometrically tracking unusual spikes in heart rates, and monitoring sleep and weight. These same technologies may have the capability to monitor and track COVID-19 symptoms, such as fever or increased heart rates.

“Integration of biomedical sensors on employees’ arms through smart watches, which can be connected through dedicated analytic servers, can help to test if employees are sick or not,” explains IEEE member Ramneek Kalra.

2. SENSORS

Another way to track employee health is through the use of passive sensors.

“The passive data gathering happens when the sensor obtains information without the user intentionally providing it,” says IEEE Senior Member André Leon Gradvohl. “For example, airports are using infrared [technology] to calculate the temperatures of passengers passing through the lobby — this capture was done passively. By combining the data obtained from these different sensors, it is possible to infer the health status of employees.”

IEEE Senior Member Paul Kostek envisions corporations installing sensors in break room and restroom entryways to determine if employees are running a temperature throughout the day. But Kostek does warn that this type of passive data gathering “will raise privacy issues that employers and their employees will need to address.”

3. CHATBOTS

Another way to understand and monitor employee health is through the use of online chatbots or robot doctors.

“Online chatbots or ‘robot doctors’ will eventually be able to collect information, advise on certain conditions and forward cases to medical professionals,” says IEEE Member Antonio Espingardeiro.

“These technologies will recreate virtual assistants through natural language processing, image recognition and machine learning techniques.”

By plugging in or virtually discussing symptoms with a chatbot, employees may be able to seek better guidance on whether or not they should consult a doctor.

In the future, employers face hard decisions about when and how to safely bring remote employees back into offices and facilities. Technology could be a key in helping to monitor companies and workers that need to remain healthy in the age of COVID-19.

Spocto Introduces CreditMonitor Platform: A conversational Chatbot to Assist Customers on RBI Moratorium and Financial Health

Deploys a conversational chatbot to lead customers through their journey and impact of availing RBI’s Moratorium 

While the country is under an extended lockdown to stay protected from COVID-19, the impact on the economy as well as individual finances has become apparent. To reduce the financial burden on individuals, RBI announced a much welcomed Moratorium on March 27th. While every bank took its stance on deciding the products, segments, or customers which the Moratorium would cover, the consumers have been facing significant challenges in deciding whether to accept or forego the benefit. 

Against this backdrop, Spocto, a leading big data analytics-based banking and financial services company, has taken the onus of educating and informing India’s retail consumers on the RBI Moratorium. Leveraging its B2C platform - Credit Monitor, Spocto is helping consumers understand the intricacies and impact of accepting the Moratorium, allowing them to make an informed decision.  

Through a tech-backed offering, Spocto has deployed a conversational chatbot which leads the customers through their journey with the bank, their products and outstanding amount, and the impact of their decision of availing or foregoing the benefit. The technology allows customers to view a calculated impact of accepting the Moratorium without having to disclose all their financial details. 

Credit Monitor’s conversational chatbot utilizes data analytics and AI to calculate the impact considering various scenarios. For instance, if a salaried professional with a housing loan of an outstanding principal below INR 20 lakh and a residual tenure of fewer than 10 years is expecting a COVID-19 salary cut, he/she would be advised to take the moratorium and pay back the interest default using arrears or bonus. Similarly, an unmarried individual below 30 years of age with a credit card/vehicle loan, and an assured wage with no salary cuts would be advised to forego the benefit as he/she might have sufficient savings.  

Speaking on the offering, Sumeet Srivastava, Founder & CEO, Spocto, said, “Through its announcement, the RBI confirmed a 3-month deferment of payment for all outstanding term loans. However, based on the various financial products with an individual, the impact of accepting the Moratorium can be starkly different for each of them. In this already uncertain period, Spocto is proud to take the responsibility of educating and informing consumers about the benefits and impact of the Moratorium. We believe that our technologically advanced product will simplify the decision for customers and allow them to make the best decision for themselves and their families.”  

Apart from offering financial assistance through its chatbot, Spocto has also shared several FAQs related to the Moratorium for the benefit of visitors. Through such all-encompassing solutions, the company is offering a guiding light to consumers amidst the uncertain and unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. 

About Spocto 

Spocto is a Big Data Analytics company that transforms consumer data into actionable intelligence to help businesses know their consumers better. Using psychographic data, they offer meaningful insights into the “why” of the consumer behavior, psychology and buying patterns.

They use 47+ data sources along with our trademarked predictive artificial intelligence that help them enrich 200+ million persona and derive highly accurate behavioral and psychographic information on a highly personalized scale to help businesses strategize, tap, strengthen and grow with their businesses with Spocto’s tailored data solutions.

With the highly specific persona data, businesses can laser target their consumers by increasing consumer engagement.

Using proprietary ontology, Spocto creates innovative applications to suit the specific needs of every business.

Meet Aham! Your New Virtual Assistant Providing Information on COVID-19 in 7 Indian Languages

In these concerning times, ever wondered you had a diligent buddy with authentic and relevant information about COVID-19? Well, that's Aham! for you. Here is a virtual assistant helping you with answers to your concerns on COVID-19 in 7 Indian Languages! This virtual assistant Aham! is created by DheeYantra, the pioneers in Indian Languages NLP and conversational AI. Their product is employed by Banks and Insurance companies across India to automate client on-boardings and customer support through conversational AI, in multiple languages.

To combat the rise of fake news related to COVID-19 contagion across India and the world, one can now visit Aham.ai. In reply to your questions, Aham will provide you with factual information curated from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW). Currently you can converse with Aham on www.aham.ai and on facebook messenger.

Currently Maharashtra and Kerala are the most affected states followed by Karnataka, Telangana, Delhi and others. This edition of Aham, quite responsive to the situation, will interact with the public in Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Telugu, Hindi and Tamil, in addition to English. DheeYantra is adding more Indian languages meanwhile to cater to vernacular speakers from other states too.

Aham majorly provides information about COVID-19 (Coronavirus), and the precautions one should take not to contract or contribute to the contagion. The bot also helps people to perform self-diagnosis to identify their risk profile. One can also get the statistics of worldwide spread of the contagion, emergency numbers to contact, information about covid-19 diagnostic and treatment centers designated by the Govt. etc.

Unlike traditional chatbots which work only with templated questions and answers, Aham is built over the conversational AI platform dhee.ai. This is highly relieving, as people need not stick to the templates given. They can ask their questions and respond to the bot like they do when they normally converse. Users can either speak to Aham using a microphone or type in their queries in their language of choice. Here too, if you are a native language user, but haven't been using a local language keyboard, you can key in your query using English (Latin) alphabets via the normal QWERTY keyboards. The underlying Dhee platform will take care of the rest.

India is a country with a 1.3 billion population, of which only about 300 million understand English. It's important that the rest of the populace has easy access to factual information from trusted sources, in the same language they speak and comprehend. DheeYantra, has thus taken this initiative to help this huge segment of people. If you don't see your native language in the initial list that Aham supports, don't worry, the team is working on it and other languages will be available shortly.

The only way we can stop COVID-19 from permanently disturbing our lives is by understanding the steps taken by the govt., adhering to the prescribed guidelines and taking all the precautions that we personally can. Let's stay informed through Aham and stay strong. Rest assured, language won't be a barrier for the same.

About DHEE.AI / DheeYantra:

Dhee.AI is a cognitive conversational AI platform from DheeYantra, an Artificial Intelligence startup. Dhee is the first and only publicly available platform to build conversational AI solutions over Indian Languages. Made for India and made in India, Dhee can understand conversations in English, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Marathi, Malayalam, Gujarati, Bangla and Oriya. Dhee has filed over 5 patents on the Indian Language NLP (Natural Language Processing) till date and is a pioneer in the segment. Dhee helps businesses to build conversational AI automations across 30+ channels such as IVR, WhatsApp, Alexa, Google Assistant, Website widgets, Social Messengers, Mobile Apps etc. For more information on Dhee.AI, one may mail to contact@dheeyantra.com.

Rezo.ai introduces Conversational AI 'Converse' for enriched customer experience this festive season

Rezo.ai – A Conversational AI platform is disrupting the customer service segment in India with its cutting-edge solution, CONVERSE, for richer customer experience this festive season. With the ability to understand the customer mood, predict interest levels, jargons, and lingos, CONVERSE provides appropriate and personalized responses to customer queries.

During festive season, there is a sudden in sales across industries like Travel, Ecommerce, Insurance, etc. Increased sales also mean that sellers need to ramp up their customer support teams to be able to handle customer queries regarding the change in order, delivery timing, complaints, replacement, refunds, feedback and much more. The customer expectation remains intact and they look to have real-time personalised responses to their queries along with frictionless, on-demand and data-driven experience to help them take better decisions. Rezo.ai is helping brands provide enriched customer experience with its solution CONVERSE that delivers intelligent communication with a human-like context.

Rezo​.ai​’s team has worked dedicated for 2 years to build their proprietary algorithms primarily using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning. ​Its solutions help understand human conversations, interpret them and respond by automating workflows. Their technology is language agnostic and providing real-time assistance to customers through different mediums like WhatsApp, Email, Live Chat and Social Media.

Commenting on the same, Rashi Gupta (Ph.D.), Co-founder & Chief Data Scientist at Rezo.ai says, “Brands are expecting bumper sale during festive period and are required to add agility, nimbleness, efficiency, and effectiveness to their customer services. The festive season provides great opportunity for us to deploy our Conversational AI technology that allows businesses to accommodate the surge in traffic without ramping up the teams or getting stressed about the response time, making it a profitable affair for businesses on one hand, and enriching experience for customers on the other. We have enabled both pre-sales, as well as post-sales customer, queries over WhatsApp and Email for multiple enterprises, by handling up to 90% of conversational traffic end-to-end with personalized responses.”

Rezo.ai is the first company to introduce Conversational bots over Whatsapp. Leveraging the benefits of CONVERSE, Rezo.ai powers next-gen customer support for brands like Aurelia, W, Delhivery, Car Dekho, etc to help them build personalized relationships with their customers without much assistance.

About Rezo.ai

Founded by an IITian couple Manish and Rashi Gupta, Rezo.ai is a one-of-its-kind AI driven platform that empowers customer services in India.

Rezo.ai’s mission is to empower brands to deliver superior customer experience at right price. Built with AI at its core, the platform incorporates Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Predictive Analytics, Feedback Mechanism and other propriety algorithms to automate enterprise work flows.

The core business of the organization is to simplify the workflows with very little human intervention, and deliver the most efficient and effective customer interactions in no time. It is integrated with all communication channels such as e-mail, chats, social media, telephony etc.

The company is currently deployed with a wide array of clients which includes some of the prominent names in the B2C sector such as Delhivery, W, etc.

YES BANK bets Big on AI; Partners Microsoft to Strengthen its AI Powered Banking Solutions

YES BANK, India’s fourth largest private sector Bank, has partnered with Microsoft to strengthen its first of its kind, AI enabled chatbot, YES ROBOT, with advanced NLP engine LUIS (Language Understanding Intelligent Service) and other cognitive services, capable of understanding and resolving the evolving banking needs of customers without the need for human intervention.

Built on Microsoft’s modular and customizable AI platform, the all new, reinvigorated YES ROBOT enables users to perform financial and non-financial banking transactions by employing conversational AI equipped with extensive financial knowledge, thereby relieving customers from the hassle of navigating through multiple web pages.

Commenting on the partnership, Ritesh Pai, Chief Digital Officer, YES BANK, said, “YES BANK has been one of the early adopters when it comes to leveraging machine learning and AI. Recognizing that chatbots would be game changers in the industry, providing major competitive advantage to banks, we had started working on automating several processes and service touch points through Bots as early as 2016. The reinvigoration of YES ROBOT in-house, using Microsoft’s cognitive services aims to further enhance customer service by personalizing interactions and reducing the time-of-first-response to just a few seconds”.

“The aim is to make the whole service experience more personalized and instant, so that the chatbot can evolve and operate as a full-fledged banking assistant in future,” adds Ritesh

Anup Purohit, Chief Information Officer, YES BANK, added, “We focused on building a holistic AI ecosystem equipped with NLP components, Machine Learning models and other AI services. YES ROBOT is a round-the-clock banking assistant developed by our in-house technology team using Microsoft Azure cognitive services. While customers can launch the chatbot on social media platforms such as Facebook, in future, we plan to integrate the bot and provide access through other channels.”

Meetul Patel, COO, Microsoft India, said, “YES BANK is taking a big step towards its vision of creating a bank of the future. This innovative solution leverages the latest technologies to help customers interact with the bank in new, more efficient, and scalable ways. Our teams have partnered to integrate Microsoft’s Azure Cognitive Services with existing systems to deliver this intelligent chatbot. It is one of YES BANK’s many innovations, and we are extremely proud to be a part of its journey to bring the best of technology to its customers."

A customer can apply for over 65 banking products, check his/her eligibility for a loan and then get serviced by a Relationship Manager after all the basic checks are done by the Bot. YES ROBOT can provide an indicative loan amount using Machine Learning (ML) and advanced credit scoring algorithms. One of the most pivotal features of this chatbot is the option to book fixed deposits (FDs) and recurring deposits (RDs) by simply conversing with it, without the need of registration or remembering passwords (only OTP based authentication is required). The Bot has been widely accepted by the Bank’s customers, testimony to which is Rs. 5.2 billion worth deposits booked through YES ROBOT since December, 2018. Even with human errors, the chatbot can identify the intent of the user with over 90% accuracy and over 8.3 million customer interactions have already been reported on YES ROBOT since its launch.

YES ROBOT’s additional disruptive industry-first features differentiates it from other Bank bots

• The chatbot allows customers to comprehensively manage their Credit Card, view summary, bill payment, reward points and international card usage


• Intuitive loan eligibility calculators understands customer’s unique requirements and provides them with an indicative loan amount. A lead ID is generated for eligible customers and real-time RM assistance is provided for further processing of loans


• Local deals and other m-commerce services such as hotel and bus ticket booking

Microsoft Azure’s cognitive services have enhanced the stability and capabilities of the YES ROBOT platform which includes efficiency in handling user query variations, accuracy in responding to user queries as well as user goal completion rate for transactions, thereby helping accelerate the speed of adding new features and time-to-market. These have also ensured that the platform is future-ready for integration with other cognitive tools and engines in a seamless plug & play manner.

Going forward, YES BANK plans to integrate the bot with services such as contextual & real-time transfer of chat from bot to the live agent of the Bank;; integration with different platforms and applications such as WhatsApp, Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri to provide the Bank’s services on IoT platforms for customers and other MS cognitive services & tools such as RPA, OCR etc. The Bank also plans to enable cross sell and acquisition services on YES ROBOT as a strategic tool to further empower the sales force.

Microsoft Cognitive Services

Microsoft Cognitive Services is a collection of intelligent APIs that allow systems to see, hear, speak, understand and interpret human needs using natural methods of communication. Developers can use these APIs to make their applications across platforms more intelligent, engaging and discoverable. Available at www.microsoft.com/cognitive, it includes APIs on

• Vision: From faces to feelings, allow apps to understand images and video


• Speech: Hear and speak to users by filtering noise, identifying speakers, and understanding intent


• Language: Process text and learn how to recognize what users want


• Knowledge: Tap into rich knowledge amassed from the web, academia, or your own data


• Search: Locate relevant information among billions of web pages, images, videos, and news with the power of Bing APIs

67% Users prefer Virtual Assistants with a ‘Friendly’ Personality - Study by Haptik

Research study by the world’s largest Conversational AI company reveals
67% users prefer virtual assistants with a ‘friendly’ personality in terms of comfort level, efficiency, and likelihood of re-engagement

Haptik, the world’s largest Conversational AI platform, has published a research study on  “Virtual Assistant Personality Preference Among Urban English Speakers”. The study was conducted by  Brinda Mehra, a Psychology student investigating the effects of inserting personality in chatbots and virtual assistants, and its influence on customer experiences primarily across three domains- likelihood of re-engagement, comfort levels and estimation of productivity and efficiency.

The research paper is available for download here.

As a part of the study,  Haptik conducted experiments using bots with three distinct personality types:

• Transactional bot (impersonal and serious bot solely focused on efficiently completing tasks).


• Prosocial bot (attempts to mimic a ‘helping hand’, engaging in social niceties and easing users through task completion).


• Friendly bot (emotional and energetic bot that uses slang and pop culture references, simulating conversations between close friends).

The study revealed that urban English speakers overwhelmingly prefer virtual assistants that exhibit a friendly personality - rating them higher than more impersonal, purely ‘transactional’ assistants when it comes to factors such as comfort level and efficiency while completing tasks. They were also more likely to re-engage with ‘friendly’ assistants.

In the first experiment, participants, aged between 18-50, were asked to order food using each of the three bots. Although their ages varied drastically, their demographics were  roughly the same. All participants had completed or were completing some level of tertiary education, had access to a smartphone or laptop (if not both) and were fluent English speakers living in metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Delhi and Hong Kong.



They were then asked to rate each of the three bots on a Likert scale, on three parameters - likelihood of re-engaging with the bot, their comfort level with the bot, and the efficiency with which the bot completed the task at hand.

The results of the experiment were as follows:

• 40% of participants said that they felt extremely comfortable interacting with the friendly bot.


• Participants were nearly three times more likely to state that they would definitely want to interact with the friendly chatbot again, as compared to the transactional bot.


• The friendly bot was nearly four times more likely to get the highest rating for productivity and efficiency, as compared to the transactional bot.


• The average ranking of the friendly chatbot was around 22% higher than that of the transactional bot.

The overwhelming preference for the friendly personality was further validated by the second experiment, with participants being asked to rate the three types of personalities based on viewing an interaction with a chat-based dictionary. The participants of the second experiment were aged 11 to 15, indicating that the preference for the friendly bots applies across age groups. The findings revealed that 67% of participants expressed a preference for the friendly bot, over the prosocial and transactional types. Qualitative feedback collected from the participants indicated that the friendly bot made them “feel like they were talking to another human being”. The use of gifs, slang and emojis by this bot also appealed to them.

What this means for the future of user engagement?

The one-of-its-kind study by Haptik has revealed interesting insights that can have far-reaching effects on how we understand man-machine engagement today.  “The popularity of the friendly bot gives enterprises a new perspective to look at conversational AI solutions,'' said Prateek Gupte, VP - Product at Haptik. “The evolution of virtual assistant personalities is currently enjoying the beginning of its golden age.  This study is an important contribution to the literature on the subject. At Haptik, we have continuously stressed on building bots that have both a distinct personality along with targeted utility.  Chatbots and virtual assistants, after all, are essentially the 24x7 voice of enterprises and brands to engage with end-users. Therefore, they are best served to have bots which can make conversations fun for users and something to look forward to."

Interestingly, Haptik has been doing significant work in the field of enhancing user experience in chatbot engagement. Its research team conducts extensive, granular level analysis of each element involved in chatbot conversations, such as the font, sound design, tonality of conversation, length of sentences, and even the emoticons used.

Kartik Poddar, Haptik’s Business Head, also commented on the study by saying “While there have been previous studies on bot personality, they have largely focused on general conversation chatbots like Mitsuku or Xiaoice. Our study is a rare experimental investigation on the role that personality plays in the context of enterprise virtual assistants. It will certainly inform our approach to designing superior conversational experiences for our partners - by enhancing our understanding of how to make human-to-machine interactions a lot more engaging, while still keeping our partners’ unique brand voice and personality in mind."

For those looking to get a more in-depth understanding of the research process and the insights obtained, download the research paper here.

About Haptik

Haptik is one of the world’s largest Conversational AI companies, having reached over 100 million devices, and processed over 2 billion conversations till date. The company has been the recipient of several industry accolades, including the Frost & Sullivan Award for Conversational AI Company of the Year 2018, and recognition as one of the Top 25 AI Companies in the World 2018 by AI Time Journal. Haptik’s leading clients and enterprise partners include Samsung, Oyo Rooms, KFC, Coca-Cola, Tata Group, Club Mahindra among others. Haptik is a part of the Reliance Jio group of companies, which acquired a majority stake in the company in a $100 million deal in April 2019.

Next Billion Users Embrace Niki, Hindi GMV Rises 300 Times in 6 Months

'Next billion users' has become one of the most common phrases in the Indian startup scene, recently. Millions of dollars are being invested in products centred around this new paradigm. Yet, many players in the market are struggling to build impactful solutions for the next billion users. However, startups that have successfully managed to cross this threshold and cracked the rural code, are witnessing game-changing growth. Bharat’s online payments agent, Niki is one such example.

A conversational agent for managing household expenses, Niki extended vernacular support to Hindi users in October 2018 and since then, has seen a massive 300x growth in Hindi GMV at an annualized run rate of 40 million USD.

While the first decade of Indian startups was about replicating what worked in developed economies for the upper layers of the socio-economic pyramid, these businesses are now nearing their inevitable saturation and the next phase of the Indian startup growth story is all about home-grown product innovation. One of the biggest pieces of this story, of course, is building for Bharat. Enters Niki.ai, the first app to make online transactions possible for the next billion users, enabling Bharat to move beyond apps like WhatsApp, Facebook or TikTok towards online household payments. Removing the roadblocks in the adoption of online payments such as complicated interfaces or language barriers, Niki handholds the Non-English speaking population in online transactions by assisting them through the entire ordering to fulfilment process in one’s language, designed to overcome the trust deficit by providing assured fulfilment to first-time internet users.

In October 2018, Niki introduced its Hindi language capabilities, targeting the 528 million Hindi-speakers in the country who were tied at the hands of English language dominating the technology developments and were yet to transact online. While vernacular and voice have been key, Niki’s approach to building for Bharat has been multi-pronged. The company focussed relentlessly on product simplicity, convenience and trust-building. If one could take care of all their financial requirements in one place over conversations, the medium that users are most familiar with - the experience can enable millions to do online payments. No wonder the app is now being used by over 4.5 million users, 80% of which are emerging from India’s Tier 2,3,4 towns like Lucknow, Patna, Ajmer, Jaipur and alike, paying monthly bills, doing prepaid recharges, bus or movie booking, in their own language over simple conversations with Niki.

“Niki’s growth post-launch in Hindi has been overwhelming and it validates our idea of voice and vernacular support being the engines of growth in the adoption of digital transactions, in a country as diverse as ours. Niki’s story has always been the one to empower Bharat to do online transactions by handholding and giving assurance by being a conversational agent in one’s language. Witnessing such rapid growth and adoption further motivates us to build for Bharat and make online payments accessible to all,” says Sachin Jaiswal, Co-founder, and CEO, Niki.ai.

Zendesk announces new self-service experiences with expanded AI-powered solutions

Zendesk, Inc. today announced the expansion of Answer Bot across all web and mobile channels, allowing companies to provide always-on support and faster responses for consumers with AI-powered self-service.

Supporting the growing demand for customer-centric solutions, Zendesk also announced new capabilities for its Guide Enterprise knowledge management product that helps customer experience teams leverage automation and AI to develop, maintain and manage more complex knowledge needs across multiple brands, products and services.

With Answer Bot and Guide Enterprise, companies can use AI and automation to power experiences that put customers at the center of the business.

Powerful automation with Answer Bot

This extension of Zendesk’s popular Answer Bot product enables real-time support, helping customers quickly access answers to common questions regardless of the channel they are reaching out on. Businesses can implement Answer Bot via API, Web Widget and Mobile SDKs, as well as email and web forms. As a result, companies will be able to reduce the volume of repetitive tickets, freeing up agent time to focus on more complex customer requests.

“Customers today demand fast responses in a context that suits them, and AI can be used to help companies be more timely and accurate when engaging with customers,” said Adrian McDermott, president of products, Zendesk. “With Answer Bot, we’re putting an end to laborious processes to resolve simple questions. We’re not just delivering self-service everywhere - we’re delivering AI-powered self-service everywhere, which will continue to make for a better customer experience."

Research from the Zendesk Benchmark report of 45,000 companies worldwide shows 85 percent of customers will shift to a different contact method if they don’t get a response from their initial request, with 44 percent waiting less than an hour before doing so.

“Answer Bot in the Web Widget has allowed our customers to self-serve their easy, quick-answer questions, allowing our agents to have bandwidth to serve more complex issues," said Aja Varney, Director, Global Customer Engagement at Spartan Race. “The time savings for our agents has allowed us to add an additional three hours of chat coverage per day."

Answer Bot also improves internal team productivity by surfacing recommendations as they speak to customers, contributing to a more efficient and accurate experience. Answer Bot for Slack and Answer Bot for Agents uses machine learning to automate support for internal teams to find answers as quickly as possible on behalf of their customers.

New Guide Enterprise powers smarter self-service

Nearly four billion knowledge base articles were viewed on Zendesk in 2018—up 13 times from five years ago. According to the Harvard Business Review, 81 percent of customers prefer to find answers themselves, which means companies should provide access to

Self-service options and regularly update help resources.

Newly added Guide Enterprise tools address this demand by empowering teams to maintain and manage more complex knowledge needs. Additional features including content lifecycle automation and enterprise-level customer self-service enhancements are detailed below:

• Content Cues provide signals to content managers to maintain and improve their knowledge base. AI-powered cues help prioritize content based on support inquiry trends, allowing managers to optimize their knowledge base to better match customer questions. For example, they can be prompted to update the most viewed articles as a priority to make sure the most common queries are always addressed.


• Article Events help companies better manage content throughout its lifecycle. Content managers can now use Article Verification to set automatic intervals to verify the relevance and accuracy of their articles, while prompting agents to create content on an ongoing basis. Scheduled Publishing* makes it easier for content managers to create and automatically manage content that has a limited life span, such as a short-term sale or promotion article.


• Flexible Hierarchies, multiple theme templates and search enhancements, make it easy for companies to manage more complex knowledge needs internally, externally and across multiple brands or services. These new enhancements to the Guide Enterprise experience make it more user-friendly for advanced businesses to give customers the accurate self-service experiences they expect and are familiar with.

Zendesk unveiled these new solutions today at Showcase London, the company’s event that brings industry leaders together to have great conversations, the freshest Zendesk product updates, and stories from innovative brands who make the most of Zendesk.

Answer Bot for Web Widget and Answer Bot for Slack are now generally available for customers. Answer Bot API, scheduled publishing and Mobile SDKs are currently in early access and will be generally available soon. More details for Answer Bot are available here.

*Source: Zendesk Benchmark Report. Refers to customer results after one year with the service.

Shiksha.com Introduces first ever AI based Assistance Platform for Students

India’s one of the leading college admission and career portal Shiksha.com has come up with the first ever AI based assistance platform for students named ‘Shiksha Assistant’. It’s a one stop platform for extracting relevant information available in millions of topics related to careers, colleges, courses and exams on Shiksha’s site. It makes it possible for a student to instantly get an answer to his query without searching for information.

Shiksha assistant like other assistant will answer all higher education related queries of a student. System will interact with the students to give answers to any queries from college details, exam details, career to course details. It tries to provide the exact information which student is trying to find out with the information available on Shiksha. After providing the solution to the query, it will also provide a link to the student to navigate for more information available on the query.

Shiksha Assistant uses multiple Artificial intelligence technologies & techniques to give an answer to students’ queries. Firstly, it tries to understand the intent of students’ queries. Secondly by using NLP (Natural language processing), it tries to understand what all topics it can serve as per the query. Based on that, it tries matching the students’ intent with topics to extract the precise details required from the information available within the topics. Shiksha Assistant tries to build the context of queries and provide relevant results based on previous conversations with the student or the information student is exploring on the portal.

Mr. Vivek Jain, Chief Business Officer, Shiksha.com says, "We proudly announce the introduction of ‘Shiksha Assistant’- the first ever Assistance Platform for Students. It’s an interactive platform that tries to understand the user doubts by enabling a conversation. Now search is made easier and simpler for students on Shiksha. With Shiksha Assistant, students need not have to read every bit of information in finding their desired details nor have to spend time in searching for information within these topics. Beside this, Shiksha Assistant also drives conversation with students by recommending more new relevant information for them to discover based on the popular topics looked out by the similar profile of students.”

Considering aggressive need of information during the engineering and MBA admission season, the Shiksha Assistant tool has been designed to reduce the burden of students in making a right decision while visiting Shiksha portal for Engineering students at https://www.shiksha.com/b-tech/jee-main-exam and for MBA students at https://www.shiksha.com/mba/cat-exam in search of their requirement.

Shiksha Assistant provides data driven reliable information available on Shiksha within seconds to a student. The robust system can handle millions of student queries at any point of time.

Maharashtra Ties with Haptik to Launch An AI Driven Initiative to provide Info on 1400 Public Services

As part of the Right to Services Act of 2015, this bot has been deployed to complement existing mobile app and websites that help with queries related to healthcare, education, public utilities, rural development, revenue and many other services.

In keeping with the digitization effort being actively pursued by the Indian government, the Government of Maharashtra has partnered with Haptik, the world’s largest conversational AI platform, to develop a chatbot for the purposes of effective information dissemination, as part of the Right to Services Act of 2015. The Act mandates that citizens should be able to access information regarding public services through digital platforms. The new chatbot will be another medium through which citizens can get their queries resolved.

One can try Aaple Sarkar Bot in action here  -https://aaplesarkar.mahaonline.gov.in/en

Available on the Aaple Sarkar RTS (Right to Services) website, the bot provides easy, conversational access to information regarding 1,400 public services managed by the state government.  

The platform has already received an overwhelming response from the residents of the state. The bot has substantially benefited users by providing them with instantaneous, accurate, transparent and complete information, as well as enabling them to track services offered by the state government.

Haptik’s
chatbot simplifies the process of searching through the vast array of
public services. Users can simply search for services like ‘driving
license’ to view all the prerequisites for the application process, and
can then track the status of their application. Accessing relevant
information, collating documents, initiating the application process,
monitoring its progress to eventual completion and feedback submission,
the RTS portal chatbot handholds the user through every stage of the
process.

Commenting on the latest initiative, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis said, “Accountability, efficiency, transparency and inclusion are the cornerstones of Good Governance. In
today’s era, the test of true Government is provision of services and
processing the paperwork with minimum human interference that too in a
time bound manner. One should get the desired services or the desired
paper processed in a time bound, transparent and predictable manner
without even knowing the person behind the show.   

Technology
is the only way we can scale governance and fulfil the aspirations of
our young population and we are proud to state that in Maharashtra we
have a dedicated portal ‘Aaple Sarkar’ through which more than 400
online services are being provided.

In
line with that the Aaple Sarkar Chatbot is another positive step to
provide solutions to the queries of public through conversations. With
the help of AI, this conversational facility is definitely going to
significantly improve the public service frameworks.

With
the launch of this chatbot, the State Government endeavoured to provide
complete range of services to the people in more efficient manner. Moreover, we are also planning to add support for Marathi and Hindi in this chatbot. “

Remarking on this commendable digitization effort, Aakrit Vaish, Co-Founder and CEO, Haptik said,
“It always gives us immense joy to implement conversational solutions
that can significantly improve public service frameworks, as these
impact the lives of millions. The RTS chatbot comprises a range of
algorithms that gives it the ability to process a large number of
queries every day, analyzing each conversation, maintaining records and
providing the user with the most useful information. We have been blown
away by the state government’s adoption of AI technology in general, and
are excited to work with them in the coming years to make the RTS bot
successful statewide across multiple languages.”

Public
services have long been accused of being stuck in non-standardized and
inefficient methods of operation, which makes availing them a cumbersome
task for citizens. In fact, the convoluted process often deters even
those residents for whose benefit specific schemes are formulated. In
such a scenario, platforms such as Aaple Sarkar offer
a new means of making a technological intervention to extend these
services in the most optimized manner to those who need it the most.

About Haptik -
Haptik is one of the world's largest conversational AI platforms, with a client list that includes Fortune 500 brands such as Samsung, Coca-Cola, Future Retail, KFC, Tata Group, ICICI Bank, Mahindra Group, among others.

Backed by investors like Kalari Capital and Times Internet, Haptik focuses on key customer engagement use cases such as customer support, feedback, order status and live chat and has processed more than a billion interactions till date. Haptik was the first company to open source a conversation based Entity Detection engine, and is patent pending on our unique bot to agent routing capabilities. In April 2016, Times Internet led a Series B round of investment in Haptik, making it one of the most well-funded independent conversational AI companies in the world

AI Chatbots and Cross Channel Marketing Top-2 Tech Areas for India Marketers, as per 2019 Study

ValueFirst Digital Media Pvt. Ltd., a B2B enterprise communication platform & services company has launched its Annual Digital Marketing Research Report 2019 titled ‘Digital Dexterity’.

For this 9th annual state of online marketing in India industry study, the country’s leading industry association DMAasia (Association of Data Driven Marketing and Advertising) & Octane Research collaborated resulting in an active participation of 350+ leading brands from a host of sectors like BFSI, eCommerce, Retail & Distribution, Telecommunication, IT, Services, etc.

The report covers themes like overview of digital marketing investment, channel wise ROI analysis and outlook towards next gen marketing technologies like Bots, Cross Channel, Big Data, etc. along with foreseeable challenges of a modern day marketer. This one of a kind collaboration within the Indian Marketing Ecosystem is a sincere effort in providing marketers with latest digital marketing trends, deep insights and valuable baseline data for their annual planning in online marketing.

Some of the key highlights are:

• AI Chatbots and Cross Channel marketing are voted as the Top 2 most promising marketing technologies for the India marketer in 2019;



• Email Marketing continues to be an effective channel for driving maximum ROI amongst all marketing channels on digital;



• ‘Proving ROI on Digital Marketing activities’ remains the top challenge for India marketers for 2019; The biggest hurdle in attribution as shared by marketers over the last 2 years is ‘technology limitations’;



• Content Marketing is the no. 1 investment area for India marketers in 2019; local language initiatives are in the top 3 areas of investment.

Vish Bajaj, CEO, ValueFirst, commented on this industry research initiative “Consumer attention continues to be fragmented over a myriad of digital channels and this is proving to be a challenge and an opportunity for India marketers. New technology is helping marketing step up its game and be dextrous to meet the demands of the 24x7 online consumer be it chatbots or cross marketing automation with necessary personalisation at scale. This report has rich marketing insights from successful marketers in a single easy reference format. I sincerely hope marketers can leverage this one of a kind India specific report to convert opportunities into digital dividends in 2019.”

According to Vatsal Asher, Founder & CEO of DMAasia, “Digital Dexterity 2019 is a go-to guide for skilfully navigating the digital space and staying abreast with what goes on in the contemporary marketer’s mind. This report succinctly depicts what worked and what didn’t for India marketers in 2018 and what they predict for 2019, so that it can be a setting ground for strategy and planning in the New Year.”

Octane Research has established itself as the definitive research authority in India on how marketers and consumers are engaging through digital channels like Social Media, Email, Voice, SMS, Search, Mobile, Web, Cross Channel and Bots. Click here to access the exhaustive work undertaken by them over the years.
About ValueFirst

Founded in 2003, ValueFirst is a B2B company connecting businesses with consumers over digital communication platforms. It has a large diversified customer base across BFSI, eCommerce, Retail and Consumer verticals along with strong relationships with telecom operators across geographies. Octane Marketing Pvt. Ltd. was acquired by ValueFirst Digital Media Pvt. Ltd. in April, 2017 and is since a subsidiary thereof.

[This content was published unedited from Business Wire India Feed]

UN Launches Facebook Chatbot to Fight Climate Change

Climate is no longer a problem of future world but its a serious issue currently faced by the world across. Increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans, this change is resulting a permanent change in the Earth’s climate affecting human health across the globe.

Hence, in order to enable individuals around the world to unite to battle climate change, United Nations has announced the launch of Facebook chatbot called 'Actnow.Bot' during the COP24 climate change conference held in Poland on Monday.

Designed to fuel climate change understanding, and urges advocates to take personal action via the Facebook Messenger Platform, the chatbot is fully interactive and responsive that users can find on the UN Facebook page. It suggests everyday actions determined by the user’s interaction with the bot, that can be taken to preserve the environment and shared via the social platform to encourage collective action.



Related Reading -- Manage Your Environmental footprint with these Online Climate Change Tools

The UN identified 10 key actions people can take in their daily lives, including taking shorter showers, eating meat-free meals and driving less. It asks you to commit to an action and hands out information like "Fewer cars on the road means less traffic and lower emissions."

ActNow users can log completed actions and share them with others on Facebook. The chatbot has already counted nearly 7,000 actions. "The campaign will highlight the impact that collective action can have at this critical moment in our planet's history," says the UN.

Alison Smale, the Under-Secretary-General of Global Communications of United Nations, welcomed the launch saying, “This new social media tool, a Facebook Messenger bot, will help people learn about activities to reduce their carbon footprint, and show—and share with friends—how they are making an impact. We all need to do things differently.”

Tech Mahindra and Avaamo Partner to Take Conversational AI Platform to Global Markets

Indian IT multinational firm Tech Mahindra has announced a global strategic partnership with californi-based Avaamo, a leader in conversational artificial intelligence (AI) founded by Indian-origin entrepreneurs. The partnership between the two include developing and delivering conversational AI solutions for global enterprises.

Conversational AI is essentially an evolved version of chatbots and aim to conduct human-like interactions with humans. The AI uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand how a normal person will communicate, instead of trying to serve a pre-defined set of options, which is in case of chatbots.

Related Reading - Anatomy of Bots, Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

Tech Mahindra will evangelize Avaamo’s enterprise products and build solutions around platforms in areas such as the internet of things, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The collaboration will help Tech Mahindra harness newer enterprise artificial intelligence technologies and serve global markets in countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Malaysia, Israel, Philippines, and Indonesia amongst many others.

Founded in 2014, by ex-TIBCO executives - Ram Menon and Sriram Chakravarthy, Avaamo has developed fundamental AI technology across a broad area of neural networks, speech synthesis and deep learning to make conversational computing for the enterprise a reality.

Jagdish Mitra, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Tech Mahindra, said, “Artificial Intelligence as a differentiated next-gen technology is core to our strategy at Tech Mahindra. Conversational AI is the next frontier of enhanced intelligence as humans and machines harmonize to enable connected experiences. Virtual assistants are already disrupting the customer experience space. Avaamo and Tech Mahindra have a shared vision - to implement cutting-edge AI solutions, specifically in the banking, telco, retail and healthcare industries”.

The industry-specific AI based conversational solutions would help clients realize the value of truly omnichannel digital customer experience. The conversational AI platform solutions, with a specific focus on vertical machine learning, will provide Tech Mahindra’s customers a seamless experience across their enterprise channels while improving digital customer engagement, net promoter score and customer insights.

Ram Menon, Founder and CEO Avaamo, said, “We began collaborating early in 2017 and are delighted with our successes so far. Tech Mahindra is truly a global player in the tech space. As we continue to work together, we'll help businesses around the world reimagine what is possible with conversational artificial intelligence”.

Also Read - Top 12 Companies Offering State-of-the-Art Chatbot Development

As part of the TechMNxt charter, Tech Mahindra is focused on developing platforms based on next-gen technologies like AI, machine learning, robotics, automation and the internet of things. Tech Mahindra and Avaamo partnership will bolster the TechMNxt charter globally.

Avaamo is a deep-learning software company that specializes in conversational interfaces to solve specific high impact problems in the enterprise. Avaamo is building fundamental AI technology across a broad area of neural networks, speech synthesis, and deep learning to make conversational computing for the enterprise a reality. With over 80+ enterprise customers supporting leading brands in financial services, healthcare, retail, and insurance. Avaamo is currently deployed in 40+ countries.

Tech Mahindra represents the connected world, offering innovative and customer-centric information technology experiences, enabling Enterprises, Associates and the Society to Rise™. We are a USD 4.9 billion company with 113,550+ professionals from 90 countries helping over 926 global customers including Fortune 500 companies. Our convergent, digital, design experiences, innovation platforms and reusable assets connect across a number of technologies to deliver tangible business value and experiences to our stakeholders. Tech Mahindra is amongst the Fab 50 companies in Asia (Forbes 2016 list).

We are part of the USD 21 billion Mahindra Group that employs more than 200,000 people in over 100 countries. The Group operates in the key industries that drive economic growth, enjoying a leadership position in tractors, utility vehicles, after-market, information technology and vacation ownership.

[Top Image - Leadership Team of Avaamo | Via - Avaamo.ai/about-us/]

Tech Mahindra and Avaamo Partner to Take Conversational AI Platform to Global Markets

Indian IT multinational firm Tech Mahindra has announced a global strategic partnership with californi-based Avaamo, a leader in conversational artificial intelligence (AI) founded by Indian-origin entrepreneurs. The partnership between the two include developing and delivering conversational AI solutions for global enterprises.

Conversational AI is essentially an evolved version of chatbots and aim to conduct human-like interactions with humans. The AI uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand how a normal person will communicate, instead of trying to serve a pre-defined set of options, which is in case of chatbots.

Related Reading - Anatomy of Bots, Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

Tech Mahindra will evangelize Avaamo’s enterprise products and build solutions around platforms in areas such as the internet of things, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The collaboration will help Tech Mahindra harness newer enterprise artificial intelligence technologies and serve global markets in countries like the United States, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Malaysia, Israel, Philippines, and Indonesia amongst many others.

Founded in 2014, by ex-TIBCO executives - Ram Menon and Sriram Chakravarthy, Avaamo has developed fundamental AI technology across a broad area of neural networks, speech synthesis and deep learning to make conversational computing for the enterprise a reality.

Jagdish Mitra, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer, Tech Mahindra, said, “Artificial Intelligence as a differentiated next-gen technology is core to our strategy at Tech Mahindra. Conversational AI is the next frontier of enhanced intelligence as humans and machines harmonize to enable connected experiences. Virtual assistants are already disrupting the customer experience space. Avaamo and Tech Mahindra have a shared vision - to implement cutting-edge AI solutions, specifically in the banking, telco, retail and healthcare industries”.

The industry-specific AI based conversational solutions would help clients realize the value of truly omnichannel digital customer experience. The conversational AI platform solutions, with a specific focus on vertical machine learning, will provide Tech Mahindra’s customers a seamless experience across their enterprise channels while improving digital customer engagement, net promoter score and customer insights.

Ram Menon, Founder and CEO Avaamo, said, “We began collaborating early in 2017 and are delighted with our successes so far. Tech Mahindra is truly a global player in the tech space. As we continue to work together, we'll help businesses around the world reimagine what is possible with conversational artificial intelligence”.

Also Read - Top 12 Companies Offering State-of-the-Art Chatbot Development

As part of the TechMNxt charter, Tech Mahindra is focused on developing platforms based on next-gen technologies like AI, machine learning, robotics, automation and the internet of things. Tech Mahindra and Avaamo partnership will bolster the TechMNxt charter globally.

Avaamo is a deep-learning software company that specializes in conversational interfaces to solve specific high impact problems in the enterprise. Avaamo is building fundamental AI technology across a broad area of neural networks, speech synthesis, and deep learning to make conversational computing for the enterprise a reality. With over 80+ enterprise customers supporting leading brands in financial services, healthcare, retail, and insurance. Avaamo is currently deployed in 40+ countries.

Tech Mahindra represents the connected world, offering innovative and customer-centric information technology experiences, enabling Enterprises, Associates and the Society to Rise™. We are a USD 4.9 billion company with 113,550+ professionals from 90 countries helping over 926 global customers including Fortune 500 companies. Our convergent, digital, design experiences, innovation platforms and reusable assets connect across a number of technologies to deliver tangible business value and experiences to our stakeholders. Tech Mahindra is amongst the Fab 50 companies in Asia (Forbes 2016 list).

We are part of the USD 21 billion Mahindra Group that employs more than 200,000 people in over 100 countries. The Group operates in the key industries that drive economic growth, enjoying a leadership position in tractors, utility vehicles, after-market, information technology and vacation ownership.

[Top Image - Leadership Team of Avaamo | Via - Avaamo.ai/about-us/]

Delhi-based Health Advise Chatbot Visit Receives Funding from Salesforce Chief Scientist Richard Socher

Visit, an artificial intelligence (AI) driven Chatbot for health advice, which already counts Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and Snapdeal founders - Kunal Bahl & Rohit Bansal, as its backers, has again roped in an another popular figure as its investor as it received an undisclosed amount of funding from Richard Socher, the Chief Scientist at Salesforce.

Socher, a Stanford alumni and a leader in the field of AI based in Silicon Valley, US, has invested in his personal capacity in Visit. Visit is Socher's third investment so far as prior to this he has invested in Israel-based Zebra Medical Vision, a medical imaging insights platform, and Luka, a software development company based in San Francisco, California.

With Socher joining Delhi-based Visit as an investor, Anurag Prasad, co-founder of Visit, said, "Richard's massive expertise in the field of AI will help us strengthen our product and machine learning efforts by leaps and bounds."



Richard Socher, on this investment, said, "The visit app is one of the most exciting combinations of human and artificial intelligence, helping people get fast, accurate and affordable advice on their health."

Founded in 2016 by BITS Pilani alumni Anurag, Shashvat Tripathi, Chetan Anand and Vaibhav Singh, Visit Internet Service Pvt. Ltd is headquartered in Delhi and offers personal healthcare assistant/chatbot for health queries and also provides a tele-health platform to connect to healthcare specialists. It connects users with over 2,000 doctors and specialists for treatments, prescriptions and counselling.

"Users engage with the Visit Chatbot by describing their symptoms and the bot poses a series of questions to predict the most probable diagnosis," explained Anurag.

In April, this year, the startup had grabbed undisclosed funding from Biz Stone, who is one of the founders of microblogging site Twitter.

According to a survey report by Oracle, it was revealed that about 80 per cent of the companies surveyed are interested in making use of chatbots within a period of next 4 years so as to take their customer service to another level.

Besides being the chief scientist at Salesforce, a global CRM solutions provider, Richard Socher was also the founder and CEO/CTO of AI startup MetaMind that was acquired by Salesforce in 2016. Metamind is an automatic image recognition powered by AI.

Recent Chatbot Startups Activities

In March this year, mobile handset manufacturer Micromax had invested in an AI-enabled Chatbot startup 'One Labs', which has developed a chatbot similar to Apple's Siri and Google Assistant.

In July 2017 Freshworks (formerly Freshdesk) acquired a chatbot startup called Joe Hukum, which too was based out of Gurgaon. Later, in the same year, an another Gurgaon based AI chatbot startup iDelivr got acquired by Phonon Communications.

The year 2017 was dominated by various chatbot activities as Amazon launched chatbot tools for developers, to help them build chat features into their own app while Microsoft launched India-specific chatbot called Ruuh, which later got wind up by the company however.

[Top Featured Image - Visit co-founders | Via - Visit@ Facebook]

News sourced from Economic Times