BOTS TO THE FORE OF BIZ!

AI improves the quality of business communiqués – Sanjeewaka Kulathunga

With the emergence of AI, businesses have begun to embrace the novel trend of technical disruption to streamline business communications and uplift their brand images. Due to the availability of chatbot software applications run by artificial intelligence, many enterprises have adopted these to communicate with consumers on online platforms such as corporate websites and social media, leading to a revolution in corporate communications.

Without a doubt, chatbots have completely changed the way consumers communicate with organisations. They allow clients to engage with businesses, reduce waiting times and lower the workload of customer service staff.

Chatbots such as Facebook Messenger for enterprises have enabled millions of customers to communicate instantly with businesses and obtain the required information they want without having to speak with a customer service agent. This has saved both businesses and consumers a substantial amount of time and money.

Organisations are already using AI to change how they engage with their clients through advertising. Algorithms are being used on internet advertising platforms such as the ads functions of Google, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and so on.

These digital platforms employ machine learning algorithms to predict the ‘cost per click’ of each ad based on its copy and targeting parameters in addition to the ‘cost per client’ acquisition.

Artificial intelligence may even be used by online advertising platforms to build hyper-targeted audiences for each ad based on data from consumers who reacted to similar advertisements. The audiences it generates are groups of consumers that the algorithm feels are most likely to interact with the business and eventually convert as a result of the ad.

Cloud communication systems such as virtual call centres are also becoming increasingly popular as more businesses modernise their communications infrastructure.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology is used in virtual call centres to offer a wireless customer service experience that combines social media and customer relationship management technology to enable a large volume of inbound and outbound calls at a fraction of the cost of an ‘on-premises’ setup.

Virtual call centres are able to gather and store massive volumes of data, making these ideal for AI integration. This is an advantage since a huge volume of data is required for most artificial intelligence applications. That’s why more businesses have begun to integrate AI into their call centre technology, allowing them to swiftly analyse all the data generated by their tools.

The capacity of AI to analyse and evaluate data quickly has enabled sophisticated operations such as sentiment analysis on live customer calls where a bot learns to identify the caller’s emotional state. It might then take action – such as contacting a manager to help with the call or doing whatever else it believes is most likely to improve the situation – based on that information.

These capabilities enable businesses to deliver personalised customer care on a scale that was previously impossible.

Fortunately, email platforms are stronger than ever at determining if emails contain spam or promotional information. For example, Gmail can separate inbound emails even before they reach the inbox without the user’s intervention.

Google applies sophisticated text filtering, client screening, interaction and a number of other machine learning-based variables to identify spam early. Text filtering uses natural language processing (NLP) to detect words and phrases typically found in spam emails.

Client filtering uses machine learning to assess the trustworthiness of email senders based on their attributes. Due to the effectiveness of these new spam filters, businesses should be more diligent and ensure that their email marketing efforts offer high quality information only to interested parties.

Google’s ‘Smart Reply’ feature, which is accessible in Gmail and several other messaging products, uses NLP to analyse all the messages that are sent and received by billions of Gmail users around the world. A specific algorithm is used to propose an appropriate response swiftly to the message received while saving a substantial amount of time for the next reply.

These are some of the many ways in which artificial intelli­gence has enhanced corporate communications. While these capabilities are exciting and already radically changing the way enterprises work, it is crucial to note that the use of AI for business communications is still in its early stages.

However, every organisation should stay up-to-date on breakthroughs in the industry and consider how it may employ artificial intelligence to improve the manner in which it communicates.