The reason for this appearance of virtual agents is the dizzying advance of artificial intelligence in recent years, especially in relation to Cognitive Intelligence, which bets on machines to perceive the environment and solve problems as a person’s cognitive system does.
The virtual agents are an AI software that simulates talking to a person. There are now tools to access, extract and process valuable data from conversations. That’s why it’s starting to be used more now.
In different industries, the first companies capable of offering a functionality that automates customer communication have already appeared. But only the most advanced programs are capable of understanding human speech and maintaining a logical and “pseudo-intelligent” conversation, and also in several languages. This fact is allowing great advances in automatic translation.
There are three main benefits of using virtual agents:
- It responds to advances in AI that allow machines to understand human language.
- It saves costs because it automates processes.
- It allows us to extract and analyze data from what our customers say.
Business organizations are looking for an alternative to mobile apps to enhance their customers’ experience and have seen virtual agents as a natural replacement for several reasons. One of them is the need to have a clear ROI of their initiatives and therefore, they are less and less willing to invest in applications with little return, and mobile applications have not met the expected expectations. A clear example, only 16% of Starbuck customers are using the Starbucks mobile application despite all Starbucks’ efforts to promote it (according to Wired).
Virtual agents offer clear advantages in terms of scalability, 24×7 support and personalised response. They are applications with simple user interfaces, quick to develop and maintain, which means a drastic reduction in development costs. And the organizations have turned their attention to them.
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