The chatbot solution aims to improve how businesses assist their customers and employees by delivering fast and highly-personalised responses.

“Every leader I speak to is seeking dual outcomes from their CX technology: superior omnichannel resolutions for their customers and an improved bottom line,” said Mahesh Ram, Head of Digital Customer Experience at Zoom.

“Imagine being able to deliver fast, accurate resolutions in 50 percent or more of your self-service interactions just weeks after launching.”

Zoom Virtual Agent works across both the web and mobile and relies on proprietary AI and machine learning technology to accurately interpret what customers or employees are asking.

“The tools and approaches for delivering conversational intelligence applications continue to improve, making it even easier for brands to deliver cost-effective self-service solutions that provide real value to their customers, while significantly reducing the cost of service,” commented Max Ball, Principal Industry Analyst at Forrester.

Zoom’s chatbot solution does not require extensive coding and claims to integrate seamlessly with various CRM, chat, and contact centre platforms. Of course, Zoom says it “shines” when used as part of its Zoom Contact Center solution.

The chatbot crawls and learns from an enterprise’s knowledge bases and FAQs to promptly deliver responses.

Built-in analytics highlight where knowledge bases are lacking so they can be updated to improve the experience going forward.

“We’ve always enjoyed working with Mahesh and team, who helped us level up our support with self-service rates that exceeded our expectations,” said Marissa Morley, CX Tools Specialist at SeatGeek.

“We’re excited to see what that same team has done with the new Zoom Virtual Agent.”

(Image Credit: Zoom)

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The system, first reported by Protocol, claims to scan users’ faces and their speech to determine their emotions.

Zoom detailed the system more in a blog post last month. The company says ‘Zoom IQ’ will be particularly useful for helping salespeople improve their pitches based on the emotions of call participants.

Naturally, the system is seen as rather dystopian and has received its fair share of criticism.

On Wednesday, over 25 rights groups sent a joint letter to Zoom CEO Eric Yuan. The letter urges Zoom to cease research on emotion-based AI.

The letter’s signatories include the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Muslim Justice League, and Access Now.

One of the key concerns is that emotion-detecting AI could be used for things like hiring or financial decisions; such as whether to grant loans. That has the possibility to increase existing inequalities.

“Results are not intended to be used for employment decisions or other comparable decisions. All recommended ranges for metrics are based on publicly available research,” Zoom explained.

Zoom IQ tracks metrics including:

• Talk-listen ratio
• Talking speed
• Filler words
• Longest spiel (monologue)
• Patience
• Engaging questions
• Next steps set up
• Sentiment/Engagement analysis

Esha Bhandari, Deputy Director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, called emotion-detecting AI “creepy” and “a junk science”.

(Photo by iyus sugiharto on Unsplash)

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London.

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