Intelligent Agents are agents of Change?
AI is a new buzzword and I was curious to dig deep on some of the productivity UseCases where AI / Smart technology is being considered.
Email is still the primary mechanism of by which people communicate for business purposes, however this position is under the threat of new tools like Slack, Jive, Confluence etc. Here is an article from Time Magazine touting Slack as Email Killer.
Slack is one of the fastest growing messaging app and is going beyond replacement of email, with its AI features to act as your personal assistant.
Drift is another startup that is focusing on simplifying tasks like setting up a meeting, looking up information that is already available in many conversations and engaging with customers over many touch points. Drift focuses on :
- Live Conversations : No more filling up forms to see a webinar, play book or any other campaign material.
- In App Messaging
- Driftbots : Intelligent agents that can act as personal assistants to guide customers to the right team member.
X.AI - Another startup that focuses on using Machine Learning and AI to takeover some of the mundane tasks by acting as your personal assistant. The UseCase illustrated on their site is when an executive wants to setup a meeting with his contact, all he has to do is copy the conversation to Amy (X.AI agent). From then on Amy will engage with the contact and come to an agreement on the date/time and venue of the meeting.
Surely if the contact also delegates his side of conversations to another Amy-like agent then that would be the UseCase where 2 agents / machines talk to each other and collaborate. The idea here is it will be seamless to other person whether they are talking to an agent or real person. Does anyone care as long as the task gets done? Siri, Google Now, Echo, Cortana are some of the big names that could play similar role to make our lives much more streamlined.
Have seen similar chatbots being considered in the Aviation industry. See my earlier post on KLM and Facebook integration. I'm sure this is only going to get more sophisticated. On the Cargo side, there are companies like Clive trying to use intelligent agents to set the right hurdle rates for adhoc shipments.
Fascinating time ahead indeed.