Nuance Communications today introduced Project Pathfinder, a technology that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to increase the conversational intelligence of virtual assistants (VAs) and chatbots.
Project Pathfinder reads existing chat logs and transcripts of conversations between agents and customers within contact centers and automatically builds the dialogue models used to create and support two-way conversations between virtual assistants and consumers.
"While today's virtual assistants can reliably facilitate basic gateway questions and answers, such as 'What's my account balance?', most are not able to have a real conversation or address more complex questions," said Robert Weideman, executive vice president and general manager of Nuance Communications Enterprise Division, in a statement. "Unlike other conversational AI tools, which are predominantly programmed by humans, Project Pathfinder automates the build for human-to-machine interactions thanks to our advancements in natural language understanding and intent discovery. Through Project Pathfinder, Nuance is raising the bar for the value that VAs can deliver."
Nuance has made Project Pathfinder available to a number of strategic customers. The technology is expected to be generally available within Nuance solutions by the summer.