Pegasystems, the software company, announced Tuesday (April 18) the launch of Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant, an artificial intelligence-powered (AI) bot that turns applications into smart assistants on a slew of channels, including SMS, email, Facebook, Alexa, Slack and more.
In a press release, Pegasystems said Pega takes bots from simple chat and data fetching features and turns them into sophisticated digital agents that anticipate people’s needs, make helpful suggestions, complete complex tasks and provide exceptional experiences.
According to Pegasystems, chatbots and virtual assistants on the market today don’t provide the humanlike experiences they promised to deliver. As a result, customers and employees are left with one-dimensional interactions with bots and virtual assistants that perform only the simplest of tasks and add little value.
Pega’s new global survey on AI stated that only 20 percent of consumers prefer chat-based customer service, and 80 percent still want a live human typing on the other end. What’s more, Pegasystems said developers are struggling to build and manage even more bots for the latest channels and establish a connected experience between them all.
Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant — part of the Pega Platform — tries to overcome these shortfalls by extending Pega enterprise applications to any conversational interface. It turns the channels into intelligent assistants that make personalized customer service and real work possible using natural language in voice or text.
The company said the Pega Intelligent Virtual Assistant comes preconfigured to extend to Facebook Messenger, Alexa and Google Home. Business users can build their own extenders to other 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, ensuring the virtual assistant responds as intended before it goes live, Pegasystems said in the press release. The tool is available as of Tuesday (April 18).
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