Ground Breaking Year for noHold’s Artificial Intelligence Platform, SICURA®

December 26, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – As 2019 is coming to an end, we are happy to reflect on the milestones noHold was able to achieve this year. Here are a few of the major accomplishments:

• noHold launched several new AI offerings this year:
• Single Point of Search which provides companies that have multiple repositories of information, an easier way to find and efficiently deliver content to their customers.
• The HR Advisor, designed to help the HR staff of companies with a large or growing workforce. Employees can ask the Virtual Assistant a question and get an answer in real time. This leaves the HR department with more time/resources to handle the things that require human intervention.
• The Sales Companion – empowering sales teams to increase revenue and reduce sales cycles. This Virtual Assistant can be leveraged by the sales person, the sales manager, and the sales operations manager.
• noHold held its first AI symposium in Italy this summer. During this exclusive three-day event, attendees from all over the world joined together to receive personalized training and best practices by noHold experts.
• noHold has penetrated multiple new verticals this year including:
• Partnering with a financial institution that now utilizes Virtual Assistants for over 300 banks across the US.
• Also, deploying a Virtual Assistant for the Education space to more than 7500 Higher Education institutions.

“This year we have celebrated our 20th Anniversary, making noHold the most experienced company in the AI-based Virtual Assistant space. We couldn’t have done it without the support of our customers and the dedication of our employees,” said Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold Inc.

noHold, Inc. AI-based HR Advisor Makes it Easy for Both Employees and HR Teams.

 August 29, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – noHold announces its latest offering, the HR Advisor. This AI-based Virtual Assistant is designed specifically to augment the way employees are able to effectively interact with HR.

After interviewing an HR Director of a Fortune 500 company based in the Silicon Valley, noHold was able to understand some of the top challenges HR Directors face. One of her major pain points was figuring out, “How can we continue to service our growing, global workforce with the same staff, but with 4 times the work?” The HR Advisor addresses this challenge by using Artificial Intelligence to answer employee questions that typically congest the HR department. Some examples of the repetitive types of questions that can be automated with the HR Advisor include “Is my family still covered while I am away?” or “How much time do I get for maternity leave?”

The HR Advisor can be built in minutes, with no programming skills necessary. You simply take your current employee handbook and upload that document into noHold’s SICURA® QuickStart platform, which will automatically transform your employee handbook into a Virtual Assistant. Here is a short video clip that shows you the process and outcome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDU9g9ql0uE&feature=youtu.be

In addition to decreasing the amount of questions that take up a significant amount of time from your HR staff, another benefit of leveraging AI within the HR department is the advantage of being able to capture “Voice of the Employee” data. According to a national study on satisfaction at work, 75% of employees would stay longer at an organization that listens to and addresses their concerns. The HR Advisor is a great way for employees to provide feedback and employers to turn that feedback into actionable metrics. 

noHold’s Artificial Intelligence Solution Enters the Financial Services Industry with 292 Banks Worldwide

July 30, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – noHold has partnered with one of the longest standing financial institutions in the United States, and now almost 300 banks around the US are utilizing noHold’s Virtual Assistant technology to help their clients.

The Virtual Assistant supports customers of various banks that have questions about their services. For example, the Virtual Assistant can answer questions about refinancing, escrow, property taxes, etc. The unique aspect of the Virtual Assistant is its ability to provide customer specific data through an API connection. This includes answering questions such as, “What is my interest rate?”, “How much is my monthly payment?”, or “What is my principle balance remaining?”

On average, the Virtual Assistant helps over 5000 customers per month, and yields an answer rate of 90%. For questions the Virtual Assistant is not familiar with, an option for escalating to a live agent is provided.

“In the FinTech space, security is paramount. In the last 24 months, noHold has focused on getting security and compliance accreditations ranging from SOC2 to GDPR. Responsible personal information management is not only a legal responsibility, but a social one as well,” said Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold, Inc.

noHold is Hosting an Artificial Intelligence Symposium this Summer in Italy

June 27, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is excited to be traveling across the world to host its first AI Symposium. This exclusive three-day event will take place from July 17th to the 19th in Lignano Sabbiadoro, Italy.

Since 1999, noHold Inc. has successfully provided Artificial Intelligence solutions to businesses. As pioneers in this space, noHold experts will be sharing best practices in AI-based Virtual Assistants for the enterprise. During this event, attendees will explore how innovations in AI can benefit the enterprise, network with experienced Virtual Assistant professionals, as well as Fortune 100 companies that are using Virtual Assistants today. Some of the presentation topics will include strategies on building and deploying a world class Virtual Assistant, ensuring that security and compliance standards are implemented, strategic UI/UX design, and so much more. For more details on the symposium’s agenda, please click here.

Attendees can expect to:

• Receive personalized training and best practices by noHold experts
• Maximize your knowledge of the SICURA platform including not-yet-released technologies from noHold
• Experience an in-depth analysis of available AI technology through SICURA at no extra cost
• Learn how to maximize your virtual assistant’s ROI
• Build relationships with their colleagues in an idyllic setting

noHold’s CEO and founder, Diego Ventura, adds, “We are excited to share the experience we have accumulated over the past 20 years in this space with our customers and partners. It will be nice to do it in a global context and in the backdrop of Venice, one of the most unique capitals of the world.”

Gonzaga University Enlists noHold’s AI to Innovate the Way Technical Support is Handled on Campus

March 28, 2019, MILPITAS, CA – Gonzaga University is continuously looking to improve processes to enhance the support experience for students and instructors. Gonzaga needed a solution that would innovate the way technical support is handled on campus.

Gonzaga found noHold, a company that specializes in Virtual Assistant technology. Virtual Assistants utilize Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help users through a chat interface. Now, the Virtual Assistant allows Gonzaga University to:

1. Support students and instructors 24/7/365 from mobile phones, the school website, social media sites, and automated personal assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant 
2. Provide users with a first point of contact, so they can find the information they need without searching
3. Analyze interactions between students and the Virtual Assistant to improve processes
4. Create an effective solution that is within budget
5. Deploy an AI tool in 6 weeks with the help of noHold Professional Services and intuitive backend

In the first month, 71% of students providing feedback found the Virtual Assistant to be helpful, twice as effective as the average Virtual Assistant at launch. noHold and Gonzaga have also discovered what topics students are struggling with most, added QR codes around campus for easy access, and expanded the Virtual Assistant’s knowledge based on user interactions.

Lyle Spencer, Data Architect from Gonzaga University said, “When we decided to find a virtual assistant solution, we were fortunate to find a partner like noHold. The noHold professionals worked relentlessly to help us create and deploy a truly exceptional example of what a virtual assistant can be. noHold’s experience helping Fortune 100 companies and providing a low-cost deployment gave me confidence in not only the capability of their solution, but also confidence in their product. Since go-live, noHold has dedicated a project manager and developer that meets with us to weekly continue supporting and improving our virtual assistant. I feel this very much speaks to their commitment as a partner, not just another vendor.”

Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold, adds, “It has been inspiring to see the passion and care the Gonzaga staff feels for its students. They worked very hard to make sure the Virtual Assistant launched without a hitch and was adopted by the whole school.”

Click here for the full use case. 

noHold is Sponsoring AVIOS' Conversational Interactions Next Week!

Next week, March 11th and 12th, noHold will be sponsoring AVIOS' 2019 Conversational Interactions conference held in San Jose, CA. Diego Ventura, noHold's Founder and CEO, will be taking part in a discussion panel, as well as a keynote presentation. Here is a short message from Diego. 

If you are interested in attending, there are still a few coupon codes available. Please send an email to diego@nohold.com and we will be happy to share that with you. 

Hope to see you next week! 

Educational Institutions Leverage noHold's Artificial Intelligence to Improve Students' Experience

Just last year, noHold announced that over 7,500 educational institutes are using noHold's Artificial Intelligence to help students and teachers. noHold realized that the Education Market (such as Colleges and Universities) is really benefit from implementing a Virtual Assistant for their Students and/or Faculty. 

Here is a 3 minute clip showing just how colleges can leverage this technology to benefit their students. 

Also, it is not just the students who can take advantage. I would like you to see how the help desk at a top University  benefits from a Virtual Assistant. This is a quick read and includes a short case study: http://www.nohold.com/edu-datasheet.pdf.  I'm interested in your feedback - let me know what you think.
www.nohold.com

Virtual Assistant Usage to Increase in 2019

noHold, Inc. Welcomes 2019!

Happy New Year! As we all start getting back into our routines after what hopefully was a great holiday, I wanted to share a quick read from Forbes contributor, Bernard Marr, "5 Important Artificial Intelligence Predictions (For 2019) Everyone Should Read."

According to Forbes, this year we can expect to see many positive things come from the AI space. For one, AI use cases will continue to become more wide spread throughout different industries and sectors. Companies (in every industry) have seen the advantages to implementing an AI strategy. For example, when noHold first started creating Virtual Assistants in 1999, it was primarily for customer support purposes, and typically with the consumer electronics space. Just in the last year, we have seen AI adoption grow exponentially within the Financial and Educational industries. This just proves how versatile and commonly used Virtual Assistants are today. 

Also, this year we can expect AI user satisfaction to increase. As the technology continues to become smarter, more people will find AI-based Virtual Assistants to be useful. 

Here is an infographic found on ISG-one.com demonstrating that automation and AI usage is expected to triple in 2019. 

For more information on Virtual Assistants, and how your company can benefit from this technology, feel free to contact noHold here to schedule a call. 

Year in Review: Some of noHold's 2018 Accomplishments

2018 has been an exciting year for noHold and the Artificial Intelligence industry in general. Here is a recap of some of the top stories of the year.

1. noHold launches NLP2X, a new way to add a conversational interface to any repository of information. For example, SQL databases, excel spreadsheets, or any other proprietary data repository with an API. This new module was designed for non programmers, managers, and executives to query repositories of information without reporting tools or help from IT. 
2. This year, noHold penetrated the Educational market in a huge way. Over 7000 Educational institutes are leveraging noHold's Virtual Assistants to help teachers and students all 
3. noHold has continued to add more new features to its AI platform, SICURA, making it have more of a conversational feel. 
4. Most recently, noHold just announced we are compliant with some of the top industry standards including Cloud Controls Matrix, WCAG2.0, SOC2 and more. 

The Verge recently released their annual AI Index report which analyzes data and expert findings on the progress of the AI industry each year. Click on the link above to see how AI has progressed through 2018.

From everyone here are noHold, we want to wish you Happy Holidays! We are excited to see what is in store for 2019!

noHold's CEO, Diego Ventura, Will Be Speaking at AIWorld's Conference in December 2018

AIWorld's third annual conference and expo is right around the corner! Over 3000 business and technology executives from all over will be coming together in Boston, Massachusetts on December 3^rd through the 5^th to learn how AI has impacted, and will continue to impact the enterprise.

Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold, Inc., is honored to be invited to speak at AIWorld. His session is on December 5^th during the 2:05 PM time slot. With almost two decades of experience with Artificial Intelligence, Diego has become a pioneer when it comes to automated support and Virtual Assistants. At AIWorld, he will be joining a discussion panel talking about how to automate customer service and technical support in the call center.

noHold has help many companies reduce Average Handle Time at the call center, while maintaining excellent customer service with the use of Artificial intelligence. Check out the following resources for more detail:

• Business Case: Agent facing Virtual Assistant
• Be a Call Center Superhero
• Managing Peaks in Call Center Volume

What Changes Have Happened To noHold.com?

I wanted to do a quick share about the redesign we have done to the noHold website. Our talented Web Master has now created a website that is easy to navigate. To most, Artificial Intelligence can be an intimidating topic because of its complexity and broadness. noHold.com explains how our AI platform works, and demonstrates the necessity of AI for any type of business! 

On the website you can find information on our patented technology (outlined above), view case studies and statistics we have gathered from being a part of the industry for two decades, customer testimonials, press releases, and articles written by publications such as Forbes, Business Insider, Popular Science, etc. 

To check out the latest on our website visit www.nohold.com. Feel free to check out our social media and leave us a comment on there as well. 

Twitter- @noholdai

LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/company/nohold-inc-/ 

noHold Launches Module 1000 as the Latest Component of its AI Platform, SICURA®

June 28, 2018, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is excited to announce the availability of Module 1000, the latest component to its AI platform, SICURA®. This feature provides a way for companies with thousands of products to create Virtual Assistants in a scalable and cost efficient way.

noHold works with companies that have portfolios counting thousands of products. One of the challenges they face when managing so many products is how to deliver world-class support for each customer regardless of the product they purchased, all while being mindful of resources and budget.

noHold's Module 1000 addresses this challenge by providing companies with a platform that makes creating a Virtual Assistant for thousands of products simple and fast. Module 1000 is able to accomplish this by leveraging existing documents to create the content for the Virtual Assistants. These documents can be product manuals, logged session scripts from live interactions, etc.

The advantages of Module 1000 include:

• Scalability. Can handle an unlimited number of products.
•  Quick implementation time. Virtual Assistants are ready to go live within days, and start answering questions while capturing customer behavior metrics.
• Cost reduction. Manages customer interactions automatically without the need for human intervention.
•  Ability to leverage existing content. No need to create new documents.

Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold, adds, “When dealing with thousands of product lines, possibly in multiple languages, it is key to be able to capitalize on existing content. It is unrealistic to create specialized content for each of the thousand products, just to make sure it works for the Virtual Assistant. We have been focusing on making this a reality, and Module 1000 represents a first important step in that direction.”

noHold's Artificial Intelligence Alleviates Live Chat Shortcomings

May 31, 2018, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is introducing a Virtual Assistant specialized in pre-empting the Live Chat channel. Throughout the years, various companies have come to noHold looking for a solution to solve some of the concerns related to Live Chat. Here is a list of the three most common issues:

• Misdirected Chats- about 60% of live chat sessions end up being irrelevant to the live agents' scope of knowledge. For example, live agents that handle pre-sales questions receiving end users asking for support. 
• Ghost Chats- An end user clicks on the Chat button, but then never interacts with the live Agent. This accounts for about 20% of all sessions.
• Pre-Chat Questionnaires- often live chat agents ask end users a number of questions to pre-qualify them. This process can be automated.

noHold now offers a Virtual Assistant specialized in pre-empting the Live Chat channel.  The Virtual Assistant is conversational and helps companies reduce misdirected and ghost chats, while capturing key pre-qualifying information from the end user.

“The agents at your call center are the most sophisticated resource available to help customers better experience your product.  It is important to engage them only when absolutely necessary so that companies can reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction,” adds Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold.

noHold Goes to Orlando's WATS2018 Conference

Source

On April 17th through the 19th, 2018, the CEO of noHold, Diego Ventura, went to a conference called WATS 2018. For those that aren't familiar with that conference, "WATS is the world's largest gathering of aviation training professionals serving airlines, regulators, training providers and training industry with more than 1,200 expected from 50+ countries." (https://www.wats-event.com/about-wats)

It was a great event, with over a thousand professionals in the aviation space attending. Multiple companies were really interested in learning more about Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Diego saw a lot of opportunities for AI to aid in the aviation training industry.

If you are interested in learning how the aviation field is planning to utilize AI, contact us via www.nohold.com.

The Do's and Don'ts of Using QR Codes

In March, noHold released a press release on how the Appliances Industry is leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) via QR codes to reduce the effort it takes for customers to  get support for their products. (Customer Effort Score- CES) Here is a link to the full release on Yahoo! Finance: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nohold-artificial-intelligence-improves-way-140000281.html

Shortly after, I bought a new washer from a huge, globally recognized brand, and inside the box came a "support" flyer with a few common questions about the washer. See the picture of the flyer below. (I have removed identifying logos for obvious reasons)

It was great to see major brands recognizing the potential of QR codes and using them to support their customers. In fact, Apple is starting to embrace the QR code trend as well. iPhone's don't require a separate app to be able to scan the codes anymore. In a recent update, iPhone cameras already have the QR reader built in for easy use. 

Kudos to the companies above for their forward thinking, but there are some aspects that can change to make better use of the technology such as: 

1. Instead of having multiple QR codes linked to individual videos, 1 QR code can be provided that pulls up a Virtual Assistant that has access to all the videos plus more if you wanted. Creating an interactive Virtual Assistant is easy and takes no programming skills with Albert. (Side note: Not only can Albert come up from a QR code, but that same Virtual Assistant can be used on Amazon's Alexa or Google Assistant for a voice enabled feature.)

2. Positioning the QR code directly on the product. It is beneficial since most people can never seem to find the manual/flyers that the product came with when they need it the most. Also, positioning the QR codes so they are easy to scan. The above flyer is almost impossible to scan the correct QR code because they are so close together. 

3.  Only being able to support English can be really frustrating for customers who don't speak English. Having a multi-lingual strategy makes a huge impact on customer satisfaction. Virtual Assistants are a great way to provide multi lingual support, without needing live agents who know every language. 

For more information on Artificial Intelligence and QR codes, please contact us here and we will get back to you as soon as possible. 

Hey Google...How was CES 2018?

As with every new year, the world's most talked about tech show, CES 2018, has come to a close. 
One of the big trends this year at CES was Digital Assistants and Artificial Intelligence. In fact, Google was reported to have dominated the conference with their showcase of Google Assistant, Google Home devices, and free donuts.

Photo credit: techcrunch.com

With Google's success at CES, demonstrating all that their voice assistant can do, I thought it would be appropriate to demonstrate yet another capability of Google Assistant. Last year, noHold created a connector that makes it possible to easily put content on Google Assistant without being a computer genius. (The key word here being easy.)

1. Sign up for an Albert account at albertai.com. 
2. Create your own Albert (bot) via a Word document or Google Doc
3. Click one button to enable your bot to work on Google Assistant. 

It is that simple.
If you are interested in more information, feel free to contact us here.
Looking forward to seeing the trends we saw from this years CES emerge. 
www.nohold.com

noHold’s AI Reveals Top Usage Metrics Around the United States

September 28, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here to stay and the statistics are confirming it. According to the 2017 Economist Intelligence Unit report, “75% of more than 200 business executives surveyed said AI will be actively implemented in their companies within the next three years.”  (Artificial Intelligence in the Real World)

In light of all the predictions surrounding AI, the team at noHold recently took a look into some usage reports, specifically from the United States, to get a better understanding of how many people are using AI currently.

noHold looked at three months’ worth of data, across a few of our randomly selected customers. Some key findings that transpired include:

• California sees the most number of sessions per month.
• Connecticut is the state that provides the most feedback about the Virtual Assistant.
• Users in Montana have the highest percentage of escalations to a different support channel. Montana also has the most verbose users, starting the interaction with an average of 5 words.
• In Ohio people stay online with the Virtual Assistant for 15 minutes, while in New Jersey end users are typically done in 10.
•  Delaware and California are at the top of the list for starting a session with a greeting or nice word such as “Good morning, I am looking for…”

These metrics prove that Virtual Assistants are constantly becoming more common within everyday interactions. Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold, goes on to say, “Two data points specifically are intriguing to me.  The fact that people ask questions with an average of five words means that we are progressing into a more evolved paradigm than the one supported by Search, where the average query is less than two words. Also, the fact that some people take the time to be nice to our Virtual Assistants is telling of the evolution between human and AI interaction.”   

noHold’s AI Empowers Americans to Stay Informed on Presidential Executive Orders

August 31, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – noHold, the acknowledged leader in web based self-service solutions, leverages its AI platform, SICURA QuickStart, to build bots (Albert) that can answer questions about Presidential Executive Orders.  Now, regular citizens can understand the details of an Executive Order without having to read it in its entirety. Visit www.albertinthehouse.com to see Executive Orders transformed into bots from four different presidents.

Albert can answer questions like “What is the purpose of this order?” or “Does this order supersede any other order?”  Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and an Inference Engine (IE), Albert is able to identify the answer to your question on your own terms, eliminating the hassle of manually sifting through the entire document. This method allows people to feel confident they are getting objective facts straight from official documents.

This concept continues to validate that there is a place for Artificial Intelligence almost anywhere. “We felt it was our civic duty to take our expertise in Artificial Intelligence and use it to empower people with uncensored knowledge that can be used to benefit the country” said Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold. Click here to hear more from Diego in a vlog discussing these Virtual Assistants.

The process to turn an Executive Order into an Albert is straightforward. Anyone can do it.

1. Sign up for a free Albert account at www.albertai.com.

2. Visit the White House site (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/executive-orders) and copy and paste the desired Executive Order into a Word Document.

3. Upload to QuickStart, and launch.

These bots will soon be available on Amazon’s Alexa, as well.

About noHold, Inc.

noHold is a privately held company established in 1999 and is headquartered in Milpitas, CA, USA (Silicon Valley). noHold is the acknowledged leader in Web based Self-service solutions with a mission to deliver real answers to real questions – real fast. Simple to use, easy to implement and as close to human as you can get, noHold turns automated customer support into cognitive customer interactions. noHold customers include Cisco, Dell, Intel and a host of industry leaders. More information can be found at http://www.nohold.com.

Enjoy New Updates to Albert PRO

Hope everyone had a great holiday break! Now, lets get right into it.  The latest version of Albert is live, and PRO users are now able to enjoy a handful of new features described!  Albert's Advice New updates include: 1. Voting mechanisms can be put in place allowing users to vote on the effectiveness of a solution. You can enable this feature in the "Edit Dialog" page.  To view the rating of effectiveness, go to "view usage." As you can see in the photo below, within the widget on the right, the different color dots symbolize whether a solution was voted effective, needs improvement, or somewhere in between.  2.  Some other updates to the usage page include: The ability to view more metrics. Now, the date filter has many ranges to choose from, or you can specify a customer date range for which you would like metrics.  An extra widget titled Top Countries. This shows you where in the world users are coming from. An option to export data has been added.  3. Even personal accounts have included a new feature. Within the dialog settings page, you are now able to create a "help" button at the top of your bot. This button is an easy way for users to escalate to an alternate support resource in the case that they can not find the answer they need with Albert. This button can be labeled whatever you like, and be linked to wherever you want. If you need any help, or have any questions on the new updates, please feel free to contact us. Albert of the Month Congratulations to Centro39 on being named June's Albert of the Month. Centro 39 is the online destination fashion boutique for luxury Italian style. As a small business, they are using Albert as a 24/7 customer service sidekick. Check out their story below. We would love to hear from you, too. Feel free to send us how you are using Albert for a chance to be featured here.

Click here to upgrade to Albert PRO.

noHold Recognized by Gartner as a 2017 Cool Vendor in AI for Conversational Platforms

June 20, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – noHold, a leader in web based self-service solutions, was named Cool Vendor in AI for Conversational Platforms, 2017 by Gartner. The Cool Vendor series is used to discover emerging innovative SMB vendors with interesting and highly original technology that impact their respective markets in a big way. This is the first year Gartner published a Cool Vendor report for this category.

According to the report, “The use of conversational platforms is a much-hyped topic, with chatbots, assistants, messaging platforms and other natural-language processing (NLP) uses vying for attention. The five Cool Vendors in this note show the breadth of offerings available and are representatives of the cutting-edge innovation in their respective fields.” (Cool Vendors for AI in Conversational Platforms, 2017, 30 May 2017) noHold’s latest platform, SICURA QuickStart, is an example of that type of revolutionary technology being put forward. This platform proves that interactive and diagnostic chatbots can be built directly using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, even if you are not a programmer.

The report goes on to discuss some of the features of SICURA QuickStart that are also outlined in a previous press release. noHold is proud to be part of a short list of companies that have demonstrated innovation in this category.

Furthermore, this is noHold’s second Cool Vendor recognition by Gartner, previously being acknowledged as a Cool Vendor in Business Process Services, 2015. It is a great honor to be accepting a Cool Vendor designation for a second year. noHold is proud to be a pioneer in the chatbot industry, and still continue to be known as a visionary in the space.

You can download the full report titled, “Cool Vendors in AI for Conversational Platforms, 2017” by clicking here.