The Next Generation of Chatbot is a Proactive Agent

Dominik Seisser, Cognigy’s Director of AI, talks about how AI is breaking new ground to address critical use cases within the enterprise. 

I love that we create solutions that give the enterprise all it needs to get up close and personal with its customers. To make this happen, we are constantly innovating and pushing the boundaries of AI to enable the enterprise to engage, interact and serve its people and customers, in a frictionless and easy way leaving them happy and satisfied.  

How we do this is quite amazing because we teach enterprise software systems to talk: literally and in all languages. With Cognigy, you can hold a two-way conversation with a database or any number of back-end systems such as CRM, ERP, SCM, BI, PLM, HCM, etc.  

The experience is so natural that it is easy to forget that it's a person-to-machine conversation. Bots built using Cognigy's conversational AI platform can communicate, answer questions, and, most importantly, ask questions and anticipate needs. These are a new generation of proactive virtual agents.  

Proactive agents are breaking new ground to become critical to addressing powerful use cases for the enterprise. That's because proactive agents ask questions, obtain data, and intervene to help prevent problems. With proactive agents in place, IT can be more efficient and effective in its operations and contact centers can satisfy more customers in faster times. However, the power of simply asking a question is formidable. As the adage goes, 'You'll never know unless you ask.' 

An example of this is found in the story of two friends, both salespeople. They were both competing for the same account. The first salesperson asked the customer what they wanted and then supplied it. However, the second salesperson didn't ask; instead, they bulldozed the customer and tried to sell what they thought they wanted. So guess who got the account?  

Undoubtedly, this example shows the power of engaging in conversation and asking informed questions. As an enterprise, how can you leverage this power? Asking tens, hundreds, of thousands of employees or customers a simple question becomes a considerable undertaking. This is where conversational AI comes in. For example, when customers do not pay you on time, have you ever considered simply reaching out, and asking a friendly, what's up? Several Cognigy customers are doing precisely that and reaching out to their customers when payments are overdue with a friendly virtual agent. The results are mind-blowing! These Cognigy customers report that they're saving millions of dollars. 

At Cognigy, we have learned how to unlock the full potential of proactive agents. First, you never know until you ask, which means that it's critical to be able to experiment and discover. Cognigy's unrivaled low-code platform allows non-technical business users to build proactive agents quickly and easily. The most effective proactive use cases are often those you can build and deploy in Cognigy within minutes. Moreover, the virtual agent needs to be powerful and well-integrated. Without proper timing, transactional and conversational capabilities needed to deliver meaningful value, a fine line to spam is easily crossed - which is the opposite of what you want to achieve. 

From AWS, ServiceNow to Zendesk, Cognigy's powerful integration within enterprise processes, its best-in-class conversational AI Flow builder and NLU (Natural Language Understanding) offers the flexibility and extensibility to deliver meaningful conversational experiences which are truly a two-way street between humans and technology working side-by-side. From a simple "How are you?" which can make all the difference to your employees to data scientists using Cognigy to obtain critical information to improve ML models, through to celebrating the latest deal with the whole team: we have just started to scratch the surface of how proactive agents will change how technology and people create value together. What questions do you want your business to ask right now?

Contact Cognigy:

Cognigy GmbH
Speditionstraße 1
40221 Düsseldorf
marketing@cognigy.com
+49 211 54591991