A Voice Interactive Multilingual Student Support System using IBM Watson

Systems powered by artificial intelligence are being developed to be more user-friendly by communicating with users in a progressively human-like conversational way. Chatbots, also known as dialogue systems, interactive conversational agents, or virtual agents are an example of such systems used in a wide variety of applications ranging from customer support in the business domain to companionship in the healthcare sector. It is becoming increasingly important to develop chatbots that can best respond to the personalized needs of their users so that they can be as helpful to the user as possible in a real human way. This paper investigates and compares three popular existing chatbots API offerings and then propose and develop a voice interactive and multilingual chatbot that can effectively respond to users mood, tone, and language using IBM Watson Assistant, Tone Analyzer, and Language Translator. The chatbot was evaluated using a use case that was targeted at responding to users needs regarding exam stress based on university students survey data generated using Google Forms. The results of measuring the chatbot effectiveness at analyzing responses regarding exam stress indicate that the chatbot responding appropriately to the user queries regarding how they are feeling about exams 76.5%. The chatbot could also be adapted for use in other application areas such as student info-centers, government kiosks, and mental health support systems.Comment: 6 page

Chatbots for enterprises: Outlook

Chatbots are going to be the main tool for automated conversations with customers. Still, there is no consistent methodology for choosing a suitable chatbot platform for a particular business. This paper proposes a new method for chatbot platform evaluation. To describe the current state of chatbot platforms, two high-level approaches to chatbot platform design are discussed and compared. WYSIWYG platforms aim to simplicity but may lack some advanced features. All-purpose chatbot platforms require extensive technical skills and are more expensive but give their users more freedom in chatbot design. We provide an evaluation of six major chatbot solutions. The proposed method for the chatbot selection is demonstrated on two sample businesses - a large bank and a small taxi service.O

Construction of ETSEIB's website Chatbot with IBM Watson Assistant

Aquest projecte tracta sobre la creació d’un assistent virtual (xatbot) per la web de l‟Escola Tècnica Superior d‟Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB) amb el programa Watson Assistant. Els principals objectius d'aquest treball són disminuir la càrrega de treball de les persones encarregades de respondre les preguntes dels usuaris i millorar l'experiència de la pàgina web. En aquest treball consta un apartat teòric, on s'explica la definició i l'estat de l'art dels chatbots, així com diferents suports per crear-los. A continuació, s'explica més a fons el funcionament de IBM Watson Assistant, que és l'eina utilitzada per crear el xatbot. Després de presentar l'eina, s'explica la metodologia emprada en la ideació i la construcció d'aquest. Durant el capítol de la metodologia es fa un paral·lelisme entre com es desenvoluparia el producte per un equip d'IBM i com ho he desenvolupat jo com a particular. Finalment s'exposa el xatbot a experimentació i se n'extreuen conclusions. Es pot concloure que és una bona manera de donar resposta a preguntes freqüents que entrin dins de l'abast, disminuiria el treball mecànic de resolució de dubtes que hi ha actualment de forma manual i ajuda en la navegació de la pàgina webEste proyecto trata sobre la creación de un asistente virtual (chatbot) para la web de la Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB) con el programa Watson Assistant. Los objetivos principales de este trabajo son disminuir la carga de trabajo de las personas encargadas de responder las preguntas de los usuarios y mejorar la experiencia de la página web. En este trabajo consta un apartado teórico, donde se explica la definición y el estado del arte de los chatbots, así como diferentes soportes para la creación de estos. A continuación, se explica más a fondo el funcionamiento de IBM Watson Assistant, que es la herramienta utilizada para crear el chatbot. Después de presentar la herramienta, se explica la metodología emprada en la ideación y construcción de este. Durante el capítulo de la metodología se hace un paralelismo entre cómo se desarrollaría el producto por un equipo de IBM y como lo he desarrollado yo como particular. Finalmente se expone el chatbot a experimentación y se extraen conclusiones. Se puede concluir que es una buena manera de dar respuesta a preguntas frecuentes que entren dentro del alcance, disminuiría el trabajo mecánico de resolución de dudas que existe actualmente de forma manual y ayuda en la navegación de la página webThis project deals with the creation of a virtual assistant (chatbot) for Escola Tècnica Superior d'Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona (ETSEIB) website with the Watson Assistant program. The main objectives of this work are to reduce the workload of the people in charge of answering user questions and to improve the experience of the website. In this work there is a theoretical section, where the definition and the state of the art of chatbots are explained, as well as different supports for their creation. Next, the operation of IBM Watson Assistant, which is the tool used to create the chatbot, is explained in more depth. After presenting the tool, the methodology used in its ideation and construction is explained. During the methodology chapter, a parallelism is made between how would the product be developed by an IBM team and how I have developed it as an individual. Finally, the chatbot is exposed to experimentation and conclusions are drawn. It can be concluded that it is a good way to answer frequently asked questions that fall within the scope of the chatbot, it would reduce the mechanical and repetitive work of resolving questions manually and it would help to navigate the web pag

A Voice Controlled E-Commerce Web Application

Automatic voice-controlled systems have changed the way humans interact with a computer. Voice or speech recognition systems allow a user to make a hands-free request to the computer, which in turn processes the request and serves the user with appropriate responses. After years of research and developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence, today voice-controlled technologies have become more efficient and are widely applied in many domains to enable and improve human-to-human and human-to-computer interactions. The state-of-the-art e-commerce applications with the help of web technologies offer interactive and user-friendly interfaces. However, there are some instances where people, especially with visual disabilities, are not able to fully experience the serviceability of such applications. A voice-controlled system embedded in a web application can enhance user experience and can provide voice as a means to control the functionality of e-commerce websites. In this paper, we propose a taxonomy of speech recognition systems (SRS) and present a voice-controlled commodity purchase e-commerce application using IBM Watson speech-to-text to demonstrate its usability. The prototype can be extended to other application scenarios such as government service kiosks and enable analytics of the converted text data for scenarios such as medical diagnosis at the clinics.Comment: 7 page

Chatbot for digital marketing and customer support: an artificial intelligence approach

Dissertação de mestrado em Computer ScienceHuman interaction with machines has never been so frequent as nowadays. In order to reduce the redundant workload of a human being that answers repeated and trivial questions regarding customer support on a digital marketing website, this work has the purpose of replacing this tedious job with an informatics tool, a dialogue tool. A dialogue tool like a Chatbot that could handle customer support to a digital marketing website, provides the opportunity of placing human resources on ”non mechanical tasks”. Given that Chatbots exchange messages directly with customers, they could collect required protocol information in all the interactions. In spite of the possibility of needing human assistance, he will not need to ask these standard questions and will improve its efficiency. By automating these required dialogues to answer questions about certain products, that would otherwise be responded by a human, the organizations will have the opportunity to place human resources in another sectors that are not so easily automated.A interação humana com máquinas nunca foi tão frequente como nos dias de hoje. Com a intenção de reduzir a quantidade de trabalho de um ser humano que receberia ao responder a questões triviais e repetidas no que diz respeito a Suporte ao Cliente, este trabalho tem o propósito de substituir um trabalho entediante por uma ferramenta informática, uma ferramenta que possibilite o diálogo entre o cliente e o serviço de suporte. Uma ferramenta como um Chatbot que poderia fornecer suporte ao cliente num website de marketing digital iria providenciar às empresas a oportunidade de alocar trabalhadores para tarefas ”menos mecânicas”. Dado que os Chatbots trocam mensagens diretamente com os clientes, estes podem recolher informações que são sempre necessárias e protocolares em todas as interações. Assim sendo, mesmo que este diálogo requira possivelmente um ser humano, este irá prescindir de fazer estas perguntas padrão, melhorando assim a eficiência deste trabalho (Suporte ao Cliente). Ao automatizar diálogos necessários para responder a questões acerca de produtos que, de outra forma seriam respondidas por um ser humano, as organizações estarão a poupar tempo e dinheiro que podem ser aplicados noutros sectores menos propícios a serem automatizados

A Reference Model for Collaborative Business Intelligence Virtual Assistants

Collaborative Business Analysis (CBA) is a methodology that involves bringing together different stakeholders, including business users, analysts, and technical specialists, to collaboratively analyze data and gain insights into business operations. The primary objective of CBA is to encourage knowledge sharing and collaboration between the different groups involved in business analysis, as this can lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the data and better decision-making. CBA typically involves a range of activities, including data gathering and analysis, brainstorming, problem-solving, decision-making and knowledge sharing. These activities may take place through various channels, such as in-person meetings, virtual collaboration tools or online forums. This paper deals with virtual collaboration tools as an important part of Business Intelligence (BI) platform. Collaborative Business Intelligence (CBI) tools are becoming more user-friendly, accessible, and flexible, allowing users to customize their experience and adapt to their specific needs. The goal of a virtual assistant is to make data exploration more accessible to a wider range of users and to reduce the time and effort required for data analysis. It describes the unified business intelligence semantic model, coupled with a data warehouse and collaborative unit to employ data mining technology. Moreover, we propose a virtual assistant for CBI and a reference model of virtual tools for CBI, which consists of three components: conversational, data exploration and recommendation agents. We believe that the allocation of these three functional tasks allows you to structure the CBI issue and apply relevant and productive models for human-like dialogue, text-to-command transferring, and recommendations simultaneously. The complex approach based on these three points gives the basis for virtual tool for collaboration. CBI encourages people, processes, and technology to enable everyone sharing and leveraging collective expertise, knowledge and data to gain valuable insights for making better decisions. This allows to respond more quickly and effectively to changes in the market or internal operations and improve the progress

Utilizing bots in delivering content from Kentico Cloud and Kentico EMS

This thesis explores an interesting and current topic of utilizing chatbots in content delivery. It defines the important terms and concepts for approaching the subject and offers a brief history of chatbots to provide some background on the topic. As the thesis is written for the software company Kentico, it specifically focuses on delivering content from Kentico Cloud and Kentico EMS software. Thus, the main research question the thesis aims to answer is what are the options for utilizing chatbots in delivering content from Kentico software. In order to achieve this goal, the thesis introduces the Kentico software and the available options, and then moves on to analyze their compatibility. As a result of the analysis, the thesis concludes that all of the considered options would be suitable for delivering content from the Kentico software. However, the extent of their suitability depends on what the user is looking for. While some options are better suited for complex implementations, they would also require more effort to develop. On the other hand, some of the options that offer more limited features do not require such wide technical knowledge and are faster to develop and set up

Tactical ISR/C2 Integration with AI/ML Augmentation

NPS NRP Project PresentationNAVPLAN 2021 specifies Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) with a tactical grid to connect distributed nodes with processing at the tactical edge to include Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) in support of Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO) and Littoral Operations in a Contested Environment (LOCE). Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) is the concept for sensor integration. However, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) and Command and Control (C2) hardware and software have yet to be fully defined, tools integrated, and configurations tested. This project evaluates options for ISR and C2 integration into a Common Operational Picture (COP) with AI/ML for decision support on tactical clouds in support of DMO, EABO, LOCE and JADC2 objectives.Commander, Naval Surface Forces (CNSF)U.S. Fleet Forces Command (USFF)This research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.