Throwback Thursday: Virtual Agent Conferences Then and Now

Photo Credit: businessinsider.com

Around this time last year, the 13th annual International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents was held in the UK. With all the forward-thinking discussion points at this conference, everyone was excited to see what the 14th annual Conference on IVA was going to have in store.  

One of the major topics surrounding this years conference was Virtual Agents in the healthcare field, something we have been anticipating for a while. "In the conference's first keynote address, Dr. Joesph Kvedar, founder and director of the Center for Directed Health at Partners Healthcare, said projected future shortages of physicians and nurses underscore the need for more relational agents in healthcare settings. Kvedar, an internationally recognized expert in connected health and telemedicine, said virtual agents can supplement healthcare professionals' work by automating certain services, thereby increasing efficiencies and reducing costs. The onset of such avatars dovetails with the healthcare industry's trending toward preventative care and wellness. As Kvedar put it, ' How can we effectively use technology to scale out people across consumers and patients, keeping them healthy and out of the high-cost part of the system?'" Click here to find out more about Virtual Healthcare Agents.

Photo Credit: babson.edu

As the IVA 2014 came to a close, the Intelligent Assistants Conference (IAC) 2014 is approaching. On September 16th, 2014 in San Francisco, CA, Opus Research is holding an event involving all things Virtual Agents and self-service. "IA Conference 2014 is where executives responsible for improving customer experience and self-service efficiency will meet vendors of solutions that put Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Analytic resources into practice in the real world." (Intelligent Assistants Conference 2014). The CEO of noHold, Diego Ventura, will also be attending this conference. 

Have you attended any Virtual Agent conferences before? Will you be attending this years IAC? 
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