New Delhi, April 19 2017: Pegasystems Inc. (NASDAQ: PEGA), the software company empowering customer engagement at the world’s leading enterprises, todaylaunchedPega® Intelligent Virtual Assistant, an artificial intelligence (AI)powered bot thateasily turns applicationsinto smart assistants on any channel – from SMS and email to Facebook, Alexa, Slack, and more. Pega evolves botsfrom simple chat and data fetching noveltiesinto sophisticated digital agents that anticipate people’s needs, make helpful suggestions, complete complex tasks, and provide exceptional experiences.
Despite the hype,today’schatbots and virtual assistants don’t provide the human-like experiences they’ve been promised to deliver.Customers and employeesare left with one-dimensional interactions instilted languagethatperform only the simplest of tasksand addlittle value.According to Pega’s new global survey on AI, only 20 percent of consumers prefer chat-based customer service, and 80 percent still want a live human typing on the other end. Meanwhile, developers struggle to build and manage even more bots for the latest channelsand establish a connected experience between them all.
Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant – part of the Pega® Platform – overcomesthese shortfalls by elegantly extendingany Pega enterprise applicationto any conversational interface. It turns these channels into intelligent assistants that make personalized customer service and real workpossible using natural language in voice or text. This makes bots more intelligent, useful, and gratifying for customers and employees to use in a variety of scenarios, such as:
· A banking bot alerts a customer checking her balance on Alexa to a suspicious charge, opens a charge dispute, and orders her a new card – all in the same session using natural language.
· A mobile service provider bot helps a subscriber on Facebook Messenger understand why he went over his data limit, suggests a plan better suited for his lifestyle, and immediately activates it so he can continue to stream the big game.
· A company’s internal IT helpdesk bothelps an employee diagnose a laptop problem with a series of questions, opens a ticket with the IT staff, and seamlessly connects her to a helpdesk staff member if the issue becomesoverlycomplex.
With decades of customer engagement and operational efficiency technology experience, Pega provides the most complete bot solution in the marketby uniquely combining:
· AI with predictive analytics and decisioningthat senses user need andoffers the right solution at the right momentfor ahyper-personalized experience.
· Natural language processing (NLP) and text analytics that make it intuitive for people to engage in the sameway thatthey normally speak or type.
· A unified architecture that enables people to seamlessly move from one channel to the next – including from a bot to a human agent if needed – and pick upexactly where they left off.
· A code-free development environment that makes it easy for any business user to configure, simulate, and manage the botto achieve their business goals.
· Case Management and Business Process Management (BPM) that drive work behind the scenes to make conversational UX(user experiences) more useful, practical, and functional.
Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant comes preconfigured to extend to Facebook Messenger, Alexa, and Google Home. Business users can easily build their own extenders to other popular messaging apps such as WeChat and Skype, as well as business collaboration apps such as Slack and Yammer. Organizations can test their bots with an integrated simulator in the native interface, ensuringthe virtual assistant responds as intended before it goes live.
Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant is available today as a key capabilityof thePega Platform, Pega’s market-leading model-driven application development environment. It can extendmostPega applications– including CRM apps for marketing, sales, and customer service and any custom-built Pega apps – with conversational UX functionality. The Pega® Customer Decision Hub provides the virtual assistantwith AI power to analyze information, anticipate needs, and make optimal decisions.
For more informationon the new Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant, including video demonstrations of it in action, visit https://www.pega.com/virtual-assistant . It will also be showcased at PegaWorld , Pega’s annual conference to be held June 4-7, 2017 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Supporting Resources:
Product background: Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant details and demos
AI fact sheet: Pega Customer Decision Hub and Artificial Intelligence
Platform background: Pega Platform information
AI consumer survey:What Consumers Really Think About AI: A Global Study
“Early bot adopters who bought in on the hype are finding that instead of getting closer to their customers on Facebook or Alexa, these disconnected experiences are actually driving them further apart,” said Don Schuerman, CTO and vice president, product marketing, Pegasystems. “Today Pega makes bots smarter and more intuitive to use while enabling a continuous experience from channel to channel. We believe this model serves as a new roadmap for the future of bots and how organizations will interact with customers and employees.”
Corporate Comm India (CCI Newswire)
