Is it possible that you could encounter an AI bot that you felt understood you and was truly likeable and empathetic? Does that sound incredible? Think again. New technology is set to take the bot concept to a genuinely new level...
Business are already harnessing AI chat bots to talk to their customers but none so spectacularly as Soul Machines - a New Zealand based business with the mission to humanise artificial intelligence to better humanity.
Stand by to be blown away because what these guys are doing today is simply staggering...
ANZ in New Zealand has been using their virtual assistant Jamie for around 5 months now. It's early days but early results are amazing and the experience of interacting with her is fantastic. She can see you and react in a very human way. I was gob smacked. I felt myself LIKING Jamie. I mean actually warming to her!
Jamie is based on a real human but she is all AI. You are interacting with something that (if you use a webcam and microphone) can read your expressions and understand your emotions and adapt accordingly with lifelike micro expressions of her own - she is emotionally responsive and appears to have character and personality - even playfully admitting to watching cat videos on YouTube if asked the right questions.
In Jamie's first 3 months she helped 12,000 customers and the business is developing her usefulness all the time. Daimler Financial Services has invested in the Soul Machines business after seeing the potential for their virtual assistant, Sarah.
Soul Machines is an amazing business, its avatars are powered by IBM Watson technology and IBM has been demonstrating how these avatars can advise customers to the point of purchase (even asking for a referral!) since 2017. Dig deeper and you see that now Soul Machines is building virtual humans in staggering detail - with neural networks that model exactly how the human brain works. Their baby x project is a breathtaking model of how human brains learn... (Get back on track, Paul...)
OK, AI is a big subject - like huge - but I'm really interested in technology that helps businesses make more sales and I'd be interested in connecting with anybody who shares this passion. Please do share with me any information that might help us all understand...
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In the meantime if you are interested in taking your marketing automation to the next level today, please feel free to come and discover sales and marketing automation at our next marketing automation breakfast briefing in Poole, Dorset...