At the Google I/O, the company demoed amazing features of Google Duplex. The A.I Chatbot that can do things like asking the intent of the call, making restaurant reservations, book meetings based on our schedule and much more.
However, it appears that Alibaba’s AI customer service agent for its logistics company Cainiao can do much more than Google. At an annual AI research gathering, the e-commerce giant demoed a sample conversation where the voice-assistant was tasked to ask a customer where the package should be delivered.
Agent: Hello, I am Cainiao’s voice assistant. I am—
Customer: Hello.
A: Yes, hi, you have package scheduled for morning delivery to 588 Culture West Road. Is it convenient for you to receive?
C: Who are you?
A: I am Cainiao’s voice assistant. I’d like to confirm your morning delivery to 588 Culture West Road. Does that work for you?
C: I’m not home in the morning.
A: Then do you have another address that you’d like to use?
Technology Review reports that Alibaba AI agent smoothly handled all the tricky conversational ingredients — interruption (pauses), nonlinear conversation (customer starts a new line of inquiry), and implicit intent (customer doesn’t explicitly says what he actually means)
Jon Rong, head of Alibaba’s machine learning team told that the AI agent is already put up in place for coordinating packaged deliveries and is serving millions of customer requests a day. Also, Alibaba will be soon incorporating its AI Chabot in different products.