OK Google, talk to Katella AI

Smart assistants are everywhere you look, and they are here to stay. According to Juniper Research, 55% of US homes (the majority) will have a smart assistant device by 2022. As our workforce getting more agile and mobile, the need for instant and accessible work data from anywhere has becoming more apparent. That is why, today, we are bringing Katella to the smart home platform, bridging the gap between your home and your workplace.

Google, meet Katella AI

You can now converse with Katella through Google Home and Google Assistant at home, at work, or on-the-go. The UX has been streamlined for voice and small screen interactions. All skills from your connected Apps will work on these devices, but here are some of our favorites:

Your company’s data at the tip of your finger (or tongue)

How many times have you wandered the hall trying to find where a person sits? Now just pull up Google Assistant and says “ask Katella AI where is Peter?” Boom!

Don’t feel so well in the morning? whisper to Google Home “ask Katella AI to take time off today”. Feel better soon.

Need reminder on your company’s policy on expensing? “ask Katella AI about our expense policy” to fetch the Knowledge Base article about expenses and read it to you.

Prepping you for the day’s agenda

“Ask Katella AI about today’s agenda” will gather data across your apps and give you a summarized speech. Katella will tell you about your next meeting and how busy you are for the day, pull blockers from Pivotal Tracker, speak Github pull requests that need your attention, and remind you of any anniversaries/birthdays from Namely HR.

Note: Katella is continuously learning so she’ll get better at learning users’ input, as well as auto-correct speech-to-text applicable to your business domains.

Smart Office?

We are scratching the surface here, but I believe the future of Katella (or other smart assistants for the workplace) is spectacularly promising. AI-powered assistants, each tailored to an individual worker, will rocket productivity and employee satisfaction to the next level. Here are a few areas that I think can see immediate benefits:

Logistics

When scheduling meetings today, Katella will suggest meeting slots that work for all attendees, but as it learns your preferences (long meetings in morning, short meetings should be consecutive) and routines (lunch time, when you get to work, when you leave work), an utterance of “move the meeting with Shelly to next week” will just automatically pick the ideal time for you.

Similarly when you walk into a meeting room at your reserved time, the room should recognize you (face/voice recognition or your phone’s NFC). Your smart assistant now takes over the room, automatically dial the meeting number and notify all attendees (through their own assistants, which will prompt remote workers with “would you like to join the meeting now?”). That alone will shave 5–10 minutes off every meeting, multiply by number of attendees multiply by the number of meetings your company has in a day.

Information everywhere

Effective meetings need good data fast. How many times do your meetings have to be paused so someone can generate reports from Salesforce or revenue numbers from your Financial system, or you suddenly need another person to join the meeting? Since your assistant is in the room, just say “Hey Katella, what is the turnover stats for our team in the last 6 months” (this works today with Namely integration), or “Katella, is Peter available right now?” (also work today with Outlook/Google Calendar integration). The information can now be projected onto the screen, giving the audiences a bird’s-eye view of the information. To summarize the meeting, say “hey Katella, add meeting action item for Ronald…”. Your assistant will collect your bullet points and promptly send them out to all attendees after the meeting.

Imagine having Katella connected with all your APIs: Salesforce, Workday, Asana, Zendesk, SuccessFactors, Expensify, …. Suddenly meetings start to becoming real dynamic: what is our burn rate for the quarter? show $2M+ opportunities closing this month, extend this meeting half an hour more, invite Peter to the meeting, order lunch for 10 people, no wait get an Uber — we are eating out.

AI-powered assistants, each tailored to an individual worker, will rocket productivity and employee satisfaction to the next level.

Wrapping up

Integrating Katella with Google Home/Google Assistant is our stepping stone into a more personable Office Assistant. We think Katella is well positioned to take on the future of an intelligent office assistant. Our technology is all homegrown and doesn’t rely on any third parties, so we have the indefinite flexibility to shape our directions and domains. 2018 should be an interesting year for the Enterprise smart assistant space.