noHold Advances Machine to Human Interaction by Creating a More Conversational Experience

April 30, 2018, MILPITAS, CA - Last year, noHold was recognized by Gartner as a Cool Vendor in AI for Conversational Platforms. Today, noHold is excited to announce the SICURA® platform has new features that are changing the way Artificial Intelligence interacts with humans. The new generation of Virtual Assistants are designed to mimic the natural flow of a conversation.

To accomplish this goal, noHold enabled Virtual Assistants to be able to handle multi-turn interactions with expansions. Multi-turn interactions mean the back and forth that happens within a conversation. Expansions refer to the various ways conversation can turn. Below are examples of expansions.

• Opening: the Virtual Assistant can understand various greetings such as "how are you", "what is your name", etc. 
• Screen: the Virtual Assistant will be able to handle questions such as "what do you know about" as well as "do you know about routers?" 
• Closing: can determine various ending statements such as "bye" or "see ya." 
• Escape: when a user types "never mind" the Virtual Assistant will know that the end user wants to move on. 
• Repeat: the Virtual Assistant can repeat if end users ask things such as "can you say that again."
• Elicit: End users can elicit information from the Virtual Assistant. Agent: "What kind of router are you interested in?" User: "Well, what are my choices?"
• Paraphrase: End users can ask for more details. Agent: "Do you prefer a wired or wireless Router?" User: "What do you mean?"

Other features that help create a more dynamic Virtual Assistant include:

• Handling confirming questions
• Managing clarifying questions
• Change of subject
• Interruptions
• Inference
• Exception handling
• Context retention

"Incorporating these features into the SICURA® platform is important. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the average person has multiple interactions with AI daily. Providing end users with the most natural experience helps decrease frustration, and at the same time increase satisfaction," said Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold.