How Zoom.ai Uses Conversational AI to Help People Work Better

Here at The Conversationalist, we are constantly looking for ways conversation and artificial intelligence can enhance human connection and bring us together. Our friends at Zoom.ai are using Conversational AI to make people in the workplace more efficient, and better able to focus on the work that matters. We spoke with them about how they streamline work tasks, the importance of Conversational User Interfaces, and how their insights can teach companies about the way their employees work.

How does Zoom.ai bring together people in the workplace and facilitate human connection?

Zoom.ai: We handle tasks that can be automated, so people can focus on higher-level work. When people’s days are less cluttered by menial tasks, they have more space to brainstorm together, to collaborate, and to work better as a team.

What are some examples of the sorts of tasks that can be automated?

Zoom.ai: Think meeting scheduling, transcribing calls, travel logistics, and more. Boring, administrative work. Our target is the knowledge worker at today’s enterprise, so we are constantly looking at the menial work tasks that take up so much of their work day, and how we can intelligently automate them.

For example, we are about to launch a CRM task-automation suite that takes care of about 80% of common quick tasks that salespeople need to get done, but that ultimately take away from their real job of selling.

How does Zoom.ai utilize and build on data to personalize conversations and interactions?

Zoom.ai: Our automated assistant is conversational and gathers data from each interaction and connected corporate accounts, so it is increasingly able to offer better and more customized help. That data enables Zoom.ai to understand people’s likes and dislikes, often better than the person can!

That data is used to predict their behavior and “fill in the gaps” during conversation, which mimics a great coworker who understands you well. This makes our user experience as frictionless and natural as possible.

How does your underlying AI contribute to simplifying work tasks and productivity?

Zoom.ai: Using natural language (an area of AI) enables people to easily obtain responses for their requests without additional training. But the key to using natural language is handling conversations naturally and intelligently. This requires both Natural Language Processing (NLP) to determine what the person is saying and understand their intention, and Machine Learning (ML) to predict information that is pertinent to someone’s request.

For example, if a person requests: “Schedule a meeting with John tomorrow for sales strategy,” NLP must understand the “entities” within that request, and ML needs to fill in the blanks that weren’t mentioned, such as which John, which meeting room, which hours, etc.

How has conversation and personalized interaction driven Zoom.ai’s ethos and growth?

Zoom.ai: Since we’re a pioneer in this industry, we’ve had to build an understanding of what a successful conversational experience is without help from previous examples. As a result, we’ve had to make our AI think more like a human.

That human thinking has fundamentally shaped the way we built our Conversational User Interfaces (CUIs). Our CUIs are designed to mimic human understanding, interaction, and responses. We really wanted our CUIs to feel like personal assistants, and to interact with our users in a way that feels like natural human conversation. That’s why our CUIs chat with users on their chosen platform, whether it’s Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts Chat, Slack, SMS, Skype, and more.

What are some specific things CUIs can do — and what are their limits?

Zoom.ai: CUIs are great for quick requests. These requests help with the things most users actually do during their work day: find information and complete basic tasks.

However, CIUs are not great for more complex work tasks like editing spreadsheets, presentations, or documents. Those sort of tasks require too much human input and thought.

Why is it important that your user experience be conversational?

Zoom.ai: The magic of Zoom.ai is that it gives users the space to be more creative and happy in their work days. It allows you to be more productive, and more engaged with the people you work with.

Similarly, your CUI should be enjoyable to interact with and should promote productivity and creativity in your work. The best way to create that pleasant, human-like user experience is through conversation. We want users to want to talk to our CUI, like they’d want to speak with a real, offline assistant. And a conversational experience is the best way to do that.

What do you see as the future of your AI?

Zoom.ai: We’ve rebuilt our NLP engine four time. Each time, we’ve been equipped with new insights on how our users are “speaking” to our automated assistant. We’ve also rebuilt our machine-learning algorithm twice now to better predict user behavior. We will continue to increase our software’s effectiveness with new mechanisms.

Learn more about how Chat Marketing can help your brand at Chatkit.com.