According to Gartner, by 2020 half of all companies will use AI Chatbots. Of course, we’re still some way off achieving this mark; but even today, a large number of organizations have implemented (fully or experimentally) chatbots to improve both customer and employee experiences. In the workplace, Chatbots aren’t just a tool designed to appeal to the always-online “millennial” — instead they can be a valuable time-saver for busy staff, with the additional benefit of reducing error rates associated with human colleagues. And in 2018, AI Chatbot technology has matured enough to create real business value to those enterprises who are pioneering digital disruption.
If you need a little more convincing or if your organization stands at the beginning of their AI Chatbot journey, here are three practical ways through which you can drive immediate business value with AI chatbots in the workplace.
1. Connect chatbots with enterprise systems
The easiest way to get started with AI chatbots is as a natural next step from Enterprise Search, just smarter. Users can speak to the chatbot naturally; natural language understanding (a form of AI) deciphers the intent behind the search query, then forwards the query to any connected enterprise back-end systems.
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Once the systems have responded, the AI aggregates and ranks the results by relevance. This response is formatted, and the best results are returned to the user as part of their conversation. In this way, employees can not only save valuable time searching across applications for information, but they can access their enterprise search directly and securely from the collaboration tools they already use.
How: With Now Assistant, you can easily connect all your enterprise systems to seamlessly connect all of your application and database APIs to the AI. After that, it’s as simple as adding the Now Assistant Chatbot to your favourite enterprise collaboration tool (e.g. Microsoft Teams) and asking away.
2. Build out a FAQ database
Your organization likely has numerous structured information resources. They sometimes have different names; “FAQs”, “How do I?”, “I Want To” and more could exist for multiple departments. Although useful, it can become challenging for employees to find what they need when information is distributed across multiple resources. This creates a valuable use-case for AI Chatbots in the workplace — a chatbot FAQ database which can quickly answer user queries from one point of access.
A FAQ chatbot presents immediate enterprise value in terms of the time saved looking for information, but can continue to add value by leveraging analytics. If your chatbot is consistently receiving a query that it doesn’t have any results for, you have a clear indicator of user demand that could streamline your business processes. By developing a process for getting answers to the questions you don’t have answers for — which may involve working with a number of departments, SMEs and other key persons — to provide the correct information once, you can vastly reduce the time taken to complete that task. Multiply that by the number of employees you have in your organization, and thats a significant time saving.
AI Chatbots like Now Assistant are even capable of utilising an employees personal information, such as location or seniority, and returning personalized answers — so every employee can get the information they need quickly, every time, from within any tool or device.
How: In Now Assistant you can build “Q&A Cards”, which contain two pieces of information: the possible ways a user might ask for this information, and the answer to that query. By creating one instance of the Card, employees can ask the same question across any instance of Now Assistant and receive an instant answer. You can also capture requests the AI couldn’t answer by using Now Assistant’s built-in analytics.
3. Loop in legacy applications
Like many organizations, you might still have — and continue to keep — a sizable amount of data and applications on-premises. This could include employee-sensitive data, business-critical data or applications that are not yet available in the cloud. Many Oracle, SAP or IBM solutions would fit that bill, and many employees still rely on applications like these and their related data on a day-to-day basis.
AI Chatbots are capable of modernizing these older legacy systems, like Oracle, SAP or IBM solutions, which are set to still be providing critical infrastructure and capabilities to enterprises for many more years. By providing access to these otherwise siloed applications through the collaboration tools and chat applications employees use day-to-day, you can dramatically boost employee productivity; users no longer have to switch back and forth between multiple applications to access data or app functionality, but can simply speak to their AI Chatbot without stopping what they are doing.
With Now Assistant, these legacy applications can even be accessed on mobile devices — either through the Now Assistant app, or as an AI Chatbot in your favourite chat applications. By making legacy applications more accessible to employees, you can give your older applications a new lease of life — and make life a lot easier for your workforce.
How: Since Now Assistant can be installed in the cloud, on-premises, or both ways — it’s a no-brainer to integrate data from legacy systems with Now Assistant. It’s secure, and gives these workhorse applications a second lease of life by making their data and functionality available from anywhere, not just client desktops. There are many databases Now Assistant supports out-of-the-box, but you can even create your own Connectors to any legacy application with ease.
Driving real business value through technology shouldn’t be difficult. With Now Assistant, it’s easy to get your smart AI chatbot for the workplace up and running, and create the right implementation to meet your business needs. By integrating an AI chatbot with your existing data, you can release your data from information silos, promote collaboration and boost your employee engagement — all while streamlining your existing business workflows and boosting your bottom line.
Ready to get started with an AI Chatbot for work? Why not check out the enterprise chat applications where you can use Now Assistant as a chatbot, or fill out the form below to get a 30-minute overview of how Now Assistant can transform your business.
Originally published at www.adenin.com on August 14, 2018.
