May 2022


The Real Potential of Conversational AI


Published in Dutch on:
Emerce

For a long time, chatbots were mainly notorious for what went wrong. Quietly, a lot has been improved since then. Patents point to an imminent leap forward. With better trained AI, real-time interaction and more personalization, conversational AI can be used in more and more ways.

D


Author
Henk Haaima

Due to all the current Metaverse buzz, it seems calm on the conversational AI front at the moment. Still, a lot happens in the shadows. A striking number of patents have been filed that point to a broader and more advanced application of conversational AI in the near future (Deloitte, 2021). Now that we are past the hype, we are also getting a better view of the real potential of this emerging technology. Conversational AI, when technically and creatively designed well, leads to human dynamic interfaces. This is in contrast to the second generation of static and instrumental interfaces that we are now gradually leaving behind. A (voice) conversation is a natural interface, because the response is real-time and the information is presented in a focused way.

The customer demand as a starting point

To fully understand the potential of these emerging technologies, let's go back to the early days of the hype. In the second half of the previous decade, chatbots came into fashion. The Dutch insurer a.s.r. even dared to replace its entire website with a conversational user interface (Emerce, 2017). In the past, visitors had a lot of trouble finding the desired information on the information-dense pages. With customer demand as the starting point, the conversation led to tailor-made information. Traditional navigation and content pages became obsolete as a result. The content was interwoven with the chat and appeared in dialogue with the visitor at logical moments.

Voice interfaces are now mainly used at home. The development of filters that can reduce background noise will soon lead to a wider application. Illustration: Ewout van Lambalgen.

Less is more

The a.s.r. chatbot is again surrounded by more traditional UX elements such as a navigation structure and small walls of generic content panels. This 'best practice' was way ahead of its time and at the time already provided a good insight into a third generation of websites.
     This new generation of websites is characterized by more personalized user experiences, thanks to the use of machine learning and AI. The way the user interacts with the interface is reflected in the response in real time. (Typo-)graphical UX is making way for conversational UX. The content forms, as it were, in a natural way around the intentions and wishes of the user. The superfluous content for that moment in the customer journey is omitted. In that sense, conversational AI is the digital embodiment of the well-known credo 'less is more'.

Conversational commerce

Something remarkable happened in the period of the rise of the chatbot. Customer care and the purchase of products and services partly moved from the traditional context of the website to chat applications. Most probably remember that about five years ago, KLM started sending boarding passes via Facebook Messenger and Suitsupply started to give personal clothing advice in Whatsapp.
     Shoe retailer Van den Assem recently launched a pilot with which purchases in Whatsapp can be paid with a Tikkie. The payment flow that currently often takes place outside the apps can soon be integrated. Although we are not as far in the West as in China, where e-shopping via apps like WeChat and Douyin is the norm, e-commerce is slowly but surely becoming conversational here too.

Conversational AI is essentially the digital embodiment of the well-known design creed less is more.

Patents and Personalization

Although chatbots are now widely used, they usually only cover a part of the user interface of the average website and the previously described radical example of a.s.r. received little follow-up.
     However, consultancies indicate that conversation bots will be used on a large scale and in more mature forms in the near future. This is evidenced by the particularly large number of patents pending in the domain of AI for conversational (chatbots, virtual agents and voice assistants). Many patents relate to innovations in the training of chatbots, which will greatly improve the quality of the responses, which are currently often wooden and biased. More complex conversations then become possible. Think, for example, of performing tasks such as booking a meeting, updating your agenda and booking a taxi. The chatbot then becomes your personal assistant.
     Personalization is particularly effective in all forms of marketing. Chatbots that are able to adapt the communication style based on the characteristics of a customer, for example age, or the state of mind during the conversation are a popular category within the patent pending.
     For voice interfaces, background noise currently leads to a disruptive user experience. Behind the scenes, people are working hard on filters to recognize and neutralize ambient noise. This means that voice devices can be used on a wider scale, such as offices and public transport (Deloitte, 2021).

Bad reputation

Despite all the positive developments and the expected breakthrough on a large scale, conversational AI has a reputation problem. Caused by the wooden and poorly designed chatbots of the early days. After all, every organization wanted a chatbot on its website as soon as possible. Adformatie publishes the sometimes hilarious series 'Bot Talk' in which various bots are tried out with varying degrees of success.
     The technological innovations described earlier will undoubtedly lead to a better user experience. But perhaps even more important are the design requirements underlying good conversational UI. What are the factors third generation web designers and digital marketers should focus on to make conversational UI a success?

Success factors

A chatbot is a first step, but the range of applications is now much broader. How can creative agencies and marketers successfully deploy conversational AI in designing digital experiences?

  1. Personality
    Personality is a key concept when it comes to designing conversational interfaces. As in real life, personality and style have a major influence on decision making and the degree to which people are attracted to a person or brand (Erika Hall, 2018). Translate the brand into conversational principles that fit in well with the identity of the organization in style. In this way, even in environments like Messenger, where you as a brand manager have little control over the manifestation of your brand, you can bring the brand to life by simply focusing on the style of the conversation and the language used.
  2. Empathy
    Every well-designed chatbot or conversational user interface is preceded by research in which anthropologists delve into the perspective, everyday routines and language of the 'other'. How do consumers talk about the products or services? Which words are used, in which sentence structures, and in what tone are they pronounced?
  3. Conversational Ecosystem
    The application of conversational AI is not only limited to the chatbot on the website and applications in chat applications. Online ads can also be conversational by placing a conversation or configuration in the banner. The conversation or configuration continues on the landing page so that ads and platforms blend seamlessly (Cavai, 2022). Design a conversational layer that runs like a thread through your brand's digital ecosystem and make the user experience more personal and effective.
  4. Conversational commerce
    The web store is partly moving from the traditional context of a website to chat applications. In Messenger and Whatsapp, applications that are used by almost everyone, there is plenty of shopping. The payment flow that currently often takes place outside the apps can soon be integrated. Popular Chinese apps WeChat and Douyin show how closely commerce and conversational are intertwined and provide a blueprint for Web3 digital products and services.

Conclusion

In third-generation websites, the interaction between user and interface will change drastically. Static user experiences are making way for more natural-feeling (voice) user interfaces that respond to user interactions in real-time.
     Although there are few barriers from a technological perspective to holding on to the current paradigm of the website, static 'walls' of mostly outlined content panels, there is a particular challenge for third generation web designers and online marketers to embrace the craft and the master the art of designing conversational interfaces.


References

  1. Hall, E. (2018), “Conversational Design”. A Book Apart.
  2. Comes, S. (2021), “Conversational AI. Five vectors of progress”. Deloitte. URL visited on 12 April 2022.
  3. Steen, J. (2021), “Is Conversational AI the Future of Mobile Apps?”. UX Magazine. URL visited on 12 April 2022.
  4. Ratner, J. (2021), “The Disruption of Customer Experience: How Conversational AI is upping UX and CX standards”. UX Magazine. URL visited on 12 April 2022.
  5. “What is Conversational AI?” IBM. URL visited on 12 April 2022.
  6. “Cavai Conversation Cloud”. Cavai. URL visited on 12 April 2022.
  7. Pearl, C. (2016) “Designing Voice User Interfaces: Principles of Conversational Experiences”. O'Reilly.
  8. “Conversation24 & Tikkie”. LinkedIn. URL visited on 12 April 2022.

May 2022


The Real Potential
of Conversational AI
 



Published in Dutch on:
Emerce

For a long time, chatbots were mainly notorious for what went wrong. Quietly, a lot has been improved since then. Patents point to an imminent leap forward. With better trained AI, real-time interaction and more personalization, conversational AI can be used in more and more ways.

Author: Henk Haaima

D

Due to all the current Metaverse buzz, it seems calm on the conversational AI front at the moment. Still, a lot happens in the shadows. A striking number of patents have been filed that point to a broader and more advanced application of conversational AI in the near future (Deloitte, 2021). Now that we are past the hype, we are also getting a better view of the real potential of this emerging technology. Conversational AI, when technically and creatively designed well, leads to human dynamic interfaces. This is in contrast to the second generation of static and instrumental interfaces that we are now gradually leaving behind. A (voice) conversation is a natural interface, because the response is real-time and the information is presented in a focused way.

The customer demand as a starting point

To fully understand the potential of these emerging technologies, let's go back to the early days of the hype. In the second half of the previous decade, chatbots came into fashion. The Dutch insurer a.s.r. even dared to replace its entire website with a conversational user interface (Emerce, 2017). In the past, visitors had a lot of trouble finding the desired information on the information-dense pages. With customer demand as the starting point, the conversation led to tailor-made information. Traditional navigation and content pages became obsolete as a result. The content was interwoven with the chat and appeared in dialogue with the visitor at logical moments.

Voice interfaces are now mainly used at home. The development of filters that can reduce background noise will soon lead to a wider application. Illustration: Ewout van Lambalgen.

Less is more

The a.s.r. chatbot is again surrounded by more traditional UX elements such as a navigation structure and small walls of generic content panels. This 'best practice' was way ahead of its time and at the time already provided a good insight into a third generation of websites.
     This new generation of websites is characterized by more personalized user experiences, thanks to the use of machine learning and AI. The way the user interacts with the interface is reflected in the response in real time. (Typo-)graphical UX is making way for conversational UX. The content forms, as it were, in a natural way around the intentions and wishes of the user. The superfluous content for that moment in the customer journey is omitted. In that sense, conversational AI is the digital embodiment of the well-known credo 'less is more'.

Conversational commerce

Something remarkable happened in the period of the rise of the chatbot. Customer care and the purchase of products and services partly moved from the traditional context of the website to chat applications. Most probably remember that about five years ago, KLM started sending boarding passes via Facebook Messenger and Suitsupply started to give personal clothing advice in Whatsapp.
     Shoe retailer Van den Assem recently launched a pilot with which purchases in Whatsapp can be paid with a Tikkie. The payment flow that currently often takes place outside the apps can soon be integrated. Although we are not as far in the West as in China, where e-shopping via apps like WeChat and Douyin is the norm, e-commerce is slowly but surely becoming conversational here too.

Conversational AI is essentially the digital embodiment of the well-known design creed less is more.


Patents and Personalization

Although chatbots are now widely used, they usually only cover a part of the user interface of the average website and the previously described radical example of a.s.r. received little follow-up.
     However, consultancies indicate that conversation bots will be used on a large scale and in more mature forms in the near future. This is evidenced by the particularly large number of patents pending in the domain of AI for conversational (chatbots, virtual agents and voice assistants). Many patents relate to innovations in the training of chatbots, which will greatly improve the quality of the responses, which are currently often wooden and biased. More complex conversations then become possible. Think, for example, of performing tasks such as booking a meeting, updating your agenda and booking a taxi. The chatbot then becomes your personal assistant.
     Personalization is particularly effective in all forms of marketing. Chatbots that are able to adapt the communication style based on the characteristics of a customer, for example age, or the state of mind during the conversation are a popular category within the patent pending.
     For voice interfaces, background noise currently leads to a disruptive user experience. Behind the scenes, people are working hard on filters to recognize and neutralize ambient noise. This means that voice devices can be used on a wider scale, such as offices and public transport (Deloitte, 2021).

Bad reputation

Despite all the positive developments and the expected breakthrough on a large scale, conversational AI has a reputation problem. Caused by the wooden and poorly designed chatbots of the early days. After all, every organization wanted a chatbot on its website as soon as possible. Adformatie publishes the sometimes hilarious series 'Bot Talk' in which various bots are tried out with varying degrees of success.
     The technological innovations described earlier will undoubtedly lead to a better user experience. But perhaps even more important are the design requirements underlying good conversational UI. What are the factors third generation web designers and digital marketers should focus on to make conversational UI a success?

Success factors

A chatbot is a first step, but the range of applications is now much broader. How can creative agencies and marketers successfully deploy conversational AI in designing digital experiences?

  1. Personality
    Personality is a key concept when it comes to designing conversational interfaces. As in real life, personality and style have a major influence on decision making and the degree to which people are attracted to a person or brand (Erika Hall, 2018). Translate the brand into conversational principles that fit in well with the identity of the organization in style. In this way, even in environments like Messenger, where you as a brand manager have little control over the manifestation of your brand, you can bring the brand to life by simply focusing on the style of the conversation and the language used.
  2. Empathy
    Every well-designed chatbot or conversational user interface is preceded by research in which anthropologists delve into the perspective, everyday routines and language of the 'other'. How do consumers talk about the products or services? Which words are used, in which sentence structures, and in what tone are they pronounced?
  3. Conversational Ecosystem
    The application of conversational AI is not only limited to the chatbot on the website and applications in chat applications. Online ads can also be conversational by placing a conversation or configuration in the banner. The conversation or configuration continues on the landing page so that ads and platforms blend seamlessly (Cavai, 2022). Design a conversational layer that runs like a thread through your brand's digital ecosystem and make the user experience more personal and effective.
  4. Conversational commerce
    The web store is partly moving from the traditional context of a website to chat applications. In Messenger and Whatsapp, applications that are used by almost everyone, there is plenty of shopping. The payment flow that currently often takes place outside the apps can soon be integrated. Popular Chinese apps WeChat and Douyin show how closely commerce and conversational are intertwined and provide a blueprint for Web3 digital products and services.

Conclusion

In third-generation websites, the interaction between user and interface will change drastically. Static user experiences are making way for more natural-feeling (voice) user interfaces that respond to user interactions in real-time.
     Although there are few barriers from a technological perspective to holding on to the current paradigm of the website, static 'walls' of mostly outlined content panels, there is a particular challenge for third generation web designers and online marketers to embrace the craft and the master the art of designing conversational interfaces.


References

  1. Hall, E. (2018), “Conversational Design”. A Book Apart.
  2. Comes, S. (2021), “Conversational AI. Five vectors of progress”. Deloitte. URL visited on 12 April 2022.
  3. Steen, J. (2021), “Is Conversational AI the Future of Mobile Apps?”. UX Magazine. URL visited on 12 April 2022.
  4. Ratner, J. (2021), “The Disruption of Customer Experience: How Conversational AI is upping UX and CX standards”. UX Magazine. URL visited on 12 April 2022.
  5. “What is Conversational AI?” IBM. URL visited on 12 April 2022.
  6. “Cavai Conversation Cloud”. Cavai. URL visited on 12 April 2022.
  7. Pearl, C. (2016) “Designing Voice User Interfaces: Principles of Conversational Experiences”. O'Reilly.
  8. “Conversation24 & Tikkie”. LinkedIn. URL visited on 12 April 2022.