speak2web: Making the most of AI for Advanced Services
Speak2web was launched focusing on large enterprise customers, building sophisticated and highly customized AI solutions. A close analysis of the challenges in the adoption of AI and voice made speak2web focus more on problems like challenging vocabulary, domain-specific terms, identifying user intents and general problems that generate as voice is not yet well supported on most WEB platforms. speak2web also worked towards solving the problem of hiding the complexity of AI and the cloud layer by building a simple to use and easy to deploy virtual voice assistant and navigation plugin that can be effortlessly used by small and medium businesses as well.
To overcome the limitations of the AI available today, the company trained the AI in accordance with vocabulary and terms that most humans, who are not deeply involved in that domain, wouldn’t understand. speak2web found creative ways to quickly direct the conversational AI in the right direction so that the words spoken are understood in the best possible context, creating a virtual voice assistant that can handle the most complex environments and challenges. To bring this advanced technology to smaller business, The company worked on WordPress plugins and launched their “DIY” intelligent “Voice Dialog Navigation” a virtual voice assistant solution. With this, speak2web has broadened its customer base more quickly and accelerated the penetration of voice-enabled web pages.
Voice on mobile devices presented its own set of challenges. Although voice is well supported in native apps, the voice support in mobile web browsers is very limited. The company developed solutions for those clients who face challenges on mobile devices. With its solutions, speak2web made navigating and operating a site on mobile devices a lot easier. Because of its small screen, navigating the menu can be cumbersome on mobile devices and the information displayed on a single screen is generally very less. If the relevant information does not make it onto the small screen right away there is the chance of losing customers. A precise understanding of the users’ wish and the ability to augment the visual response with a verbal response enabled speak2web to completely change the experience of browsing web pages on mobile devices.
speak2web worked towards bridging the gap in the AI field that enabled first-time users to streamline their computer interaction by providing them with an accurate answer and navigate the web for them. “Although the concept of using a conversational AI looks easy enough on the surface, it usually gets very complex and experienced staff is required to make it successful”, says Walter Angerer, CEO, speak2web. As the support of voice and speech varies greatly across the different platforms like iOS, Android, Windows, and the different browsers, it took a lot of engineering effort to make this a seamless experience for their clients.
A virtual voice assistant can address problems in a new way and solve challenges which remain unsolved so far. Most of the companies face the issue where they have more information that needs to be communicated than what can reasonably fit onto a page. To address this problem, companies generally create subdomains, landing pages and more, hoping that the user will find that page either through the navigation menu or keyword search. But most of the times users can’t find what they are interested in and navigate to other websites. To fill this gap, speak2web incorporated verbal engagement for their client’s website. Verbal questions quickly and accurately identify the user’s real intent, based on which speak2web’s solutions can efficiently navigate the user to the part of the WEB portal that addresses that specific need.
speak2web also addressed the issue of using the right keyword. This, though gets neglected by most of the companies, speak2web realized the necessity to develop solutions to help users find the apt keyword. When users enter keywords on the search bar, they generally try to guess what keyword will most likely give them the result they are looking for. speak2web’s solution helps its clients monitor the keyword searches closely to understand what their customers are looking for. speak2web believes that in a voice scenario the user generally provides much more information than just one word, allowing the AI and the company to understand the context of the keyword and therefore yield faster and better search results for the user with a deeper understanding of their customers.
Smaller clients have many website visitors who don’t know much about the company yet and seek more information. While larger clients need to focus more on the details the user is looking for. Since speak2web caters to all sizes of clients, the company needs to focus on all these aspects. Realizing the demand, speak2web developed simply to deploy generic dialogue that addresses the urgent needs for smaller and medium-size customers without the need for customization.
Using AI with the ability to ask clarifying questions and to analyze all the information provided in its context greatly improves the experience of the users which leads to higher retention of customers on the site. Moreover, voice navigation and AI-based search being a novelty that energizes the customer base, it also makes the eStore a more attractive place for suppliers to sell their products on. With the help of the AI and the voice interface, suppliers are finding new ways to better describe their differentiating features. eCommerce stores are also experiencing increased engagement levels of their customers as users are able to shop from eCommerce stores in a way they have never before been able to do. Besides voice and conversational AI, the company also works with deep learning, knowledge tree technology in combination with Natural Language to enhance their client’s services for their customers. speak2web is still working on innovating ways to increase web traffic, user engagement, as well as help, get the core message across to the users.
speak2web’s next focus is on proliferating the plugin to other web technologies. In the second half of the year, the company plans to release a voice-driven online market called Simon’s Market. Simon’s Market will be 100 percent voice-driven, a virtual shopping mall where consumers and customers can interact with virtual assistants via voice to find what they are looking for. Also, the company is planning to simplify the deployment of knowledge tree technology to see if they can make that very advance AI feature accessible to small and medium businesses. Focusing primarily on the North American market at the moment, speak2web is planning to expand into Europe starting with English speaking areas and gradually German areas.
Originally published at https://theceoviews.com on June 25, 2019.
