What Google’s Meena Chatbot Means To Conversational AI

Google recently announced on it’s AI blog the advent of a new age of chatbot.

Meena has been trained on 2.6 billion parameters gathered from a vast variety of data sources but why is this important for conversational AI and conversational commerce?

In any meeting, the ability to control and influence the conversation gives you power over the outcome.  If conversations are automated, the best ones will deliver the best outcomes for those who create them.  This is the reason there is such an arms race in this field.  With Meena, like with the awe-inspiring duplex demo Google are sending a powerful message that they are an important player in this domain, influencing choices made by developers and system architects.

There is a growing expectation to immediately access to the brands and services we regularly use and the ability to get the answer to any question, or make any request as easily as talking to our friends and family on WhatsApp is compelling e.g. “Hey BT, I’ve just moved to 29 Acacia Road, can you update my account please”.

The move to frictionless, conversational, communication with the brands and services we use is inevitable, conversational channels (and I must include voice assistants here) are where this communication will happen and the brands that start to understand early will make the largest gains.  There has been an explosion in the amount of bots being created which means the race is on for your attention.  Are you controlling your conversation?

Speak to us about how you can take advantage of Alexa Skills, WhatsApp chatbots, Messenger bots to Grow Revenue, Improve Customer Experience and Differentiate Against Your Competition info@sayitnow,ai