Welcome to the October 2023 edition of the Conversational AI Monthly Newsletter, your source for the latest news and innovations in the world of conversational artificial intelligence. This month saw major industry players integrate conversational capabilities into platforms and partnerships, enabling businesses to tap the power of AI conversations. New solutions are driving personalization, streamlining workflows, and extracting insights through natural language.
Key themes include the launch of AI “copilots” to simplify tasks conversationally, we also saw growth in vertical applications. Partnerships are bringing large language model benefits to contact centers and enterprises.
As AI assistant adoption grows, conversational interfaces may become the dominant way we interact with technology and brands. Stay tuned each month for the latest transformations enabled by conversational AI!
Investment/Partnership Deals
US-based Hyro, a leader in responsible conversational AI for healthcare, has partnered with digital solutions company UST. Hyro’s conversational AI platform will be integrated into UST ContineoHealth’s contact center offerings. This will allow UST’s hospital and health system clients to leverage AI assistants for patient-facing tasks like prescription refills, FAQ resolution, appointment scheduling, and troubleshooting. The Hyro platform promises to help healthcare providers resolve more routine requests, freeing contact center agents to focus on higher-value patient interactions. With 46% of call center leaders already deploying or planning to deploy large language model AI, this partnership brings advanced conversational AI capabilities to UST’s suite of patient-centric digital transformation solutions. Healthcare organizations can now easily implement AI assistants to improve efficiency and the patient experience.
NICE, a leader in CX solutions, has entered an agreement to acquire LiveVox, a prominent provider of AI-powered proactive outreach. By combining NICE’s CXone digital engagement platform and Enlighten CX AI with LiveVox’s proactive outreach capabilities, the acquisition creates an end-to-end CX solution. It converges voice, digital, inbound and outbound interactions on a single cloud platform powered by purpose-built AI. For organizations, this unified solution promises to revolutionize proactive, personalized CX. It meets customers on their preferred channel using the right interaction method. The deal underscores the trend of using smart conversational AI to scale CX operations into the digital era. Together, NICE and LiveVox can help companies deliver seamless omnichannel experiences to advance CX in the age of digital and AI.
Dubber has partnered with cloud communications platform Alianza to bring advanced voice AI capabilities to over 200 communication service providers (CSPs). Dubber will integrate its conversational intelligence tools like unified recording, analytics, and voice AI into the Alianza platform. This will enable Alianza’s CSP customers to equip their offerings with cutting-edge insights and differentiated services powered by AI. Dubber goes beyond just transcription to extract valuable insights from conversations using AI. The partnership allows CSPs on the Alianza platform to innovate and monetize their networks through next-gen conversational intelligence. As AI transforms business communications, collaborations like this illustrate how conversational intelligence can become an integrated part of communication solutions. With turnkey access to Dubber’s portfolio, CSPs can lead the adoption of AI-driven conversational analytics at scale.
Conversational commerce platform Connectly has raised $7.85 million in a Series A funding round led by Volpe Capital. The investment marks Connectly’s official expansion into the US market and the advancement of its AI platform for retail and e-commerce businesses. Connectly enables personalized conversations with customers through AI sales assistants that integrate with backends and engage via messaging platforms like WhatsApp. The AI leverages insights to recommend relevant products and deepen customer understanding. As consumer behaviors evolve, Connectly allows brands to meet customers where they are for more impactful, automated conversations. The funding highlights investor confidence in Connectly’s vision of transforming commerce through conversational AI that provides tailored suggestions and support. With the new capital, Connectly plans to further develop its platform and drive conversational commerce adoption in the US and globally.
KPMG India has partnered with AI company Vianai Systems to provide AI-based Conversational Finance to CFOs through Vianai’s hila Enterprise solution. The offering enables finance professionals to ask questions in natural language against enterprise systems of record, documents, and data sources. In turn, they receive instant responses in the form of text, dashboards, charts and more. Targeted specifically for CFOs, the solution aims to make enterprise data more transparent and accessible through AI conversations, without needing intermediaries or specialized tools. As AI transforms business processes, this collaboration underscores the potential of conversational interfaces to unlock value from data for finance users. With pre-trained models fine-tuned to internal systems, conversational AI can play a key role in providing finance teams with timely, relevant insights to aid data-driven decision making.
New product features, highlights & use cases
Indian proptech unicorn NoBroker has launched CallZen, a new conversational AI platform, moving into a different business line beyond real estate. CallZen is an AI-powered call center solution that provides insights and auditing for calls, chats, and meetings in multiple Indian languages. It was first used internally at NoBroker, transcribing English, Hindi, and mixed-language calls and auditing 10% of them. NoBroker is now offering CallZen as a product to help other companies with lead generation, fraud detection, and business process management while achieving 100% call audits. The launch underscores NoBroker’s expansion beyond core real estate offerings and the growing demand for conversational AI to extract insights from customer interactions. As proptech firms like NoBroker enter new spaces, conversational AI promises to be a key enabling technology for call centers and business process optimization across sectors.
Conversational AI provider Kore.ai has launched an AI-powered voice gateway solution on the Genesys AppFoundry marketplace. The new offering enables Genesys Cloud CX customers to leverage Kore.ai’s generative and conversational AI to optimize their contact center operations. Key features include intelligent IVR routing powered by generative AI, 24/7 virtual agents that can answer customer queries, and personalized self-service options. This leads to improved customer satisfaction and contact center efficiency. The pre-built integration allows for quick deployment of Kore.ai’s contact center AI capabilities on top of Genesys platforms. As a Genesys partner, Kore.ai is providing an easy way for brands to differentiate their customer experience with advanced conversational AI. The integration highlights the growing demand for AI-augmented contact centers and customer service solutions.
Integration platform Boomi has introduced Boomi GPT, bringing conversational AI capabilities to its platform. Powered by generative AI, Boomi GPT allows users to leverage natural language prompts to build integrations, APIs, and data models faster. Acting as a “copilot”, Boomi GPT outlines the requested integration or automation based on learning from 200+ million existing integrations. Users can then accept or modify the outline. By translating words into actions, Boomi GPT makes it easier for citizen developers to connect applications, data, and devices. As the first offering in Boomi’s new AI suite, it underscores the company’s focus on using AI to accelerate integration, automation, and innovation. With conversational interfaces and generative AI, Boomi is further democratizing integration to help organizations drive faster outcomes. The launch highlights the market demand for no-code solutions that incorporate AI to simplify connectivity and automation.
Rasa, a conversational AI company, has launched a new generative AI platform aiming to simplify and accelerate enterprise chatbot development. The platform uniquely combines pro-code and low-code capabilities. Developers can use pro-code for complex conversational design while leveraging low-code tools to quickly build AI assistants. This blended approach reduces the complexity of generative AI implementation for enterprise chatbots. Rasa is breaking barriers by being the first conversational AI platform to natively incorporate generative AI in a way that is accessible to both expert developers and business users. The innovative technology underscores Rasa’s focus on making conversational AI more easily deployable for companies. By streamlining developer workflows and enabling faster iteration, Rasa’s platform helps enterprises adopt AI assistants and scale conversational AI across the organization. The launch highlights the market demand for more intuitive AI platforms that expand access to generative AI’s benefits.
Data analytics provider DataGPT has launched DataGPT AI Analyst, a conversational AI tool for data analysis. Combining large language models with analytics capabilities, DataGPT allows users to chat with their data in natural language to get instant analyst-grade insights. Its proprietary database and analytics engine deliver quick computation of complex data queries. With its conversational AI agent interpreting queries in context, DataGPT aims to make sophisticated data analysis accessible without compromising accuracy. The company believes its software can help businesses build an advanced data culture by empowering any employee to easily obtain relevant insights through conversation. The launch highlights the potential of conversational AI to open up data analytics beyond just technical users, as natural language interfaces make extracting impactful information quicker and more intuitive.
Restaurant automation provider Vistry has launched a new conversational AI platform and chatbot assistant called LumoChat to aid online ordering. Powered by generative AI similar to ChatGPT, LumoChat helps customers complete tasks like menu inquiries, ordering, and delivery through personalized conversations across web and mobile. With intelligent menu parsing and location services, LumoChat builds an optimized cart and streamlines checkout with auto-filled details. Vistry claims this is the first generative AI chatbot for restaurants. The platform integrates with existing online ordering and POS systems for omnichannel capability. Restaurants can deploy LumoChat to engage and convert more online customers. As generative AI transforms dining experiences, Vistry’s platform underscores the potential of conversational AI to personalize and streamline ordering while improving customer service. The launch highlights growing industry demand for AI chatbots that can boost sales and optimize customer interactions.
Conversational engagement platform Gupshup.io has unveiled new features to enable personalized and automated customer conversations at scale. The updates include audience categorization, retargeting capabilities, and integration of generative AI bots powered by Gupshup’s ACE LLM engine. Together, these enhancements help brands acquire, qualify, and nurture leads through interactive campaigns across channels. Gupshup.io is using AI to assist consultative selling based on past interactions, driving higher resolution and conversion rates. The platform also provides a visual journey builder and bot studio so teams can quickly craft omnichannel experiences. As conversations become central to customer engagement, Gupshup.io’s latest release emphasizes automation and personalization. With optimized tools for creating personalized bot flows, the platform underscores the potential of AI to humanize conversations, understand context, and deliver delightful experiences that boost engagement.
Industry Trends
Accenture’s annual Life Trends report forecasts widespread adoption of conversational AI like ChatGPT over the next decade. The research found 42% of consumers are comfortable using chatbots for product recommendations, 44% for completing work tasks, and 33% for wellness and healthcare advice. As AI assistants become more intelligent, integration into daily interactions is accelerating. The report predicts generative AI will drive transformative change across industries, as its ability to understand context enables more personalized and human-like conversations.