The Perils & Learnings of Naming a Bot
When we started Zoom.ai, we built an automated assistant for everyone in the workplace.
But that assistant needed a name that was memorable and relatable, so we called it Ava, short for “automated virtual assistant”.
The name paid homage to the humanoid robot in the movie Ex Machina, except that our assistant wouldn’t kill it’s master.
When we launched, we received feedback that was different…
- We had a branding disconnect.
- Were we Zoom.ai or Ava?
- What was the connection between Zoom.ai and Ava?
We tried several things to solve those issues. First we called the assistant Ava Zoom. Then we called it Ava @ Zoom.ai. Then we called it Ava by Zoom.ai. Then we called it Ava Zoom once again.
Hmm… That didn’t solve anything…
2. Our bot, Ava, was yet another automated assistant that had a “female name”. Yes it was an acronym, but *nobody* got that!
- Some users asked if the assistant was based on a real person, what she looked like, and if they could get introduced to her
- Some users were annoyed that this was yet another stereotype of a female assistant
- Some users wanted to be able to create their own assistant’s name
We did some research on what people would want as a name for their assistant:
- We asked a lot of people in and around our office
- We ran a poll in our Toronto Tech Facebook group
- We interviewed people who had strong opinions about the name
Here is what we learned…
“Everyone had a different opinion about the assistant’s name”
Here are some gems that we came across in our findings:
- Max; the handsome Canadian lumberjack
- Basil; the British butler
- Pat; because it could be female or male
- Botty; the Bot that rhymes with potty
- Hal; from 2001 (because we all secretly want our assistant to kill us)
- Fluffy Rabbit; we are still not sure why
After quite a lot of internal discussion and reflection, today we launched a new feature that let’s our users customize their assistant’s name.
Our users can call it anything they want. Don’t let us tell you what to call it, and don’t blame us if some users decide to stick with Ava.
Just remember that the people who interact with your assistant will also see it’s name. So you might want to pick a name that isn’t going to embarrass you. (e.g. I just named my assistant “Dennis”)
There are pros and cons to this approach, but we believe that this will help build the Zoom.ai brand, as opposed to the name of the bot. Hopefully this will make everyone happy since they can choose whatever name* they want for their assistant.
* excluding some words we find offensive
