Journal du Net, France: Assistant Vice President of Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work Says the Future of Chatbots Hinges Upon Their Ability to Become Useful and Indispensable to Human Beings

“Helping humans converse with computers in their native language used to be the stuff of science fiction,” says Robert H. Brown. “However, with the arrival of chatbots, technology has made fiction into fact and transformed the business world once more.” Excerpts:

“In the context of chatbots, it is actually not about “the robot” at all, it is all about how easy the end-user finds it to use, and simply whether it works or not.

As time passes, chatbots will become increasingly specialized in specific topics or tasks. There might be an expert chatbot that specializes in providing information about medicines while there will be some like x.ai’s “Amy”, Apple’s Siri or Microsoft’s Cortana that are expert at making calls or scheduling meetings.

Such specialization will make chatbots more utilitarian and dependable. Users will then need to understand what the chatbots does, specializes in, excels in, and — most importantly — where it has limitations.

One of the things that makes most present-day browsers so useful is their ability to answer questions at what almost seems to be the speed of the user’s thoughts, sometimes faster, as though they can read minds.

The experience of a good chatbot interaction is not judged only on its capacity to answer a question correctly, but also the speed at which such a response is provided.

In the bot world, solving a problem after a first contact with a customer will become a key performance metric.

The concept of a superbot is not well-known in France yet, but will be a significant element in the future of bots.

As bots become more specialized and popular, they will proliferate. For many companies, managing them could become as overwhelming and complex as managing apps is today. The solution could come in the form of a superbot.

The future of chatbots will hinge upon their ability to become useful, maybe even indispensable, to human beings.”

Click here to read the article in French.