Will ChatBots replace our Self Service Applications ?

There has been a proliferation of ChatBots and their usage is proliferating day by day. For the enterprises to be a Digital Master ChatBots play an important role. Before I go further let me define what a ChatBot is as per me. A Chatbot is the one having an interface to chat with a human being and the backend chat is done by a BOT (An intelligent program which has been trained with data and helps in taking decisions and solving issues) . Let us divide the UIs into two types Conversational UIs and Non Conversational UIs. A chatbot has a conversational UI resulting in a human conversing to a BOT in a step by step manner. This helps anyone to get started quickly. We do not need anyone be trained or the training is minimized. So the biggest advantage of Conversational UI is the minimum amount of Training required to handle any kind of application.

It is no secret that the world is shifting to a Conversational UI from a Non Conversational UI. The reason why we like Conversational UI is because we would like to have the questions to be structured the way we want to understand rather than the way the application wants to teach us. So the big difference is the way we want to learn is different the way we would like to be taught. If someone wants teaches it is always subjective from the person experience and if you want to learn the way you want itis subjected from an understanding you have on the subject. So let us take any self service application for that matter. All Self service applications has the following difficulties. 1. First of all the application has a name associated with it. No Novice can understand the name. 2. Secondly all self service applications has a URL associated with it. Nobody wants to remember the URL. 3. Thirdly all service applications work on a fixed rule mode and does not draw inference from the data. As an example I am trying update a purchase order it gives PO cannot be update as there is a system problem. Look at what ChatBot can do . I am not able to update the PO as it looks like we have some problem in the maintenance of the system and why cant yo come back or give me the details and I will try and update latter. we are more comfortable with the latter answer.

Two Consumer ChatBots excel in my opinion and we are yet to have an enterprise class ChatBOT that excels the way these consumer BOTs excel. Namely Allo from Google and the Alexa from the Echo Amazon. However Amelia from IPSOFT comes very close to an outstanding enterprise class ChatBot. Allo has a Digital Assistant which understands the user questions goes to Google or Quora or Wikipedia in the Web and try and answer the questions. It keeps learning and if you look at it it does not make the same mistake. Secondly I used the Alexa from Amazon. Amazon has built and beaten Siri in the way Alexa talks and understands issues. It also adjusts to the user slang and diction and keeps improving day by day. The good part of Amelia in the enterprise market is the way it understands the enterprise users and its ability to integrate with the backend systems.

SO what does the chatbot consists ? Its ability to understand the Natural Language and classify the information. It uses an outstanding classifier and classifies a given input to a set of possible outputs and from the outputs the rules of the conversational engine starts from the top. To start with the Conversational engine should be able to store those rules and induct new rules based on learning. Secondly an enterprise class ChatBOT should have an ability to connect to other applications and answer the relevant questions. Slowly we are reaching a stage where in an enterprise a ChatBOT will be more knowledgeable about the enterprise than the people who are working. For many of us today Google Maps have become indispensable ? Most of the time we have started listening to Google Maps and that is one of the first few applications where the Machines Control the humans - in a way.

So if a trained ChatBOT in an enterprise will be able to solve most of the issues ? Will it become a Quora or a Google Map for all the employee questions ? The answer is possibly yes and it some places it had started happening. An enterprise consists of multiple functions and each function has its own nuances. No single person knows all the nuances . So Assume that an enterprise has a transport department and if you want to know the routes of all the ways it takes so that you can board the transport. Can you do it today ? Possibly no.

What is the impact of these chat bots in Application development ? We will develop less and less applications to get know many things inside the enterprise. You will have an intelligent BOT guiding you all the time and in all the places. This could be possibly be one of the second or third steps where the humans will be guided by Bots rather than another human being. Future is interesting and exciting. So i do think the adge Job is for Machines and Life is for Humans is soon becoming more and more true.