noHold Announces SICURA® Voice to Add Speech Recognition Capabilities to its AI Platform

October 31, 2018, MILPITAS, CA – Previously, noHold announced its ability to provide voice for its Virtual Assistants through Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant. Now, noHold is excited to be able to provide its customers with voice recognition and speech synthesis straight from its platform, SICURA.

Integrating SICURA with smart speakers like Amazon Echo and Google Home has been a great first step toward providing voice to our Virtual Assistants, but in some cases our customers want complete control of the customer experience, so we created SICURA Voice. This new component includes:

• Speech Recognition
• Speech Synthesis
• Multiple language support

The Speech Recognition is speaker independent, meaning that it can work with multiple users without training. It is also continuous meaning that it understands free speech, not just simple one or two word commands. It currently supports thirteen languages, ten are European and three are double-byte (Chinese, Japanese and Russian).

Our customers can now create their own voice enabled Virtual Assistant without the need of publishing it on a specific platform, or using a specific invocation phrase.

“noHold has been in the conversational interfaces space for almost two decades. Adding voice to our NLP and NLU solutions is a natural progression that helps us augment our customers’ capabilities,” said Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold, Inc.

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, McAfee and a host of industry leaders. More information can be found at http://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. 

Learn How to Create an Alexa Skill or a Google Action in Minutes

noHold is proud to announce Diego Ventura, Founder and CEO of noHold, will be taking the stage at the 2018 Conversational Interactions conference hosted by AVIOS. This conference is all about connecting humans and machines. It will largely center around Natural Language Processing, Virtual Assistants (bots or digital assistants), and the various channels customer conversations can happen on. For more information about the conference, visit www.conversationalinteractions.com.

The event is being held close to noHold's headquarters in San Jose, California on February 5th and 6th. To catch Diego's presentation, be sure to be there on February 5th between 9:00 AM and 10:00 AM PST. He will be talking about, "The Easiest Way to Create an Alexa Skill or Google Action." It was a great opportunity to be able to speak at the conference last year, and it is an honor to be invited back to present again.

It was a great opportunity to be able to speak at the conference last year, and it is an honor to be invited back to present again.

To register for the conference, click here.
Cheers
www.nohold.com

Andy Paul invites CEO of noHold to discuss Virtual Assistants from a Sales Perspective

Recently, Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold, was asked to guest star on the top-rated podcast, Accelerate!, hosted by Andy Paul. Andy is known as the go-to resource for the best sales advice online. Diego's 20+ years of experience in the AI space, gave him a unique perspective on sales. 

You can listen to the podcast at www.andypaul.com.

Some key takeaways include: 

• Diego says the single biggest challenge facing sales reps today is getting introductions to the right people (decision-makers). It is hard to do with email.
• Diego explains how a virtual agent or assistant differs from a knowledge base. A virtual assistant helps the user get to the most specific solution as quickly as possible within the framework of a dialog rather than a search.
• NoHold is partnering with companies like Google and Amazon to accomplish voice recognition and speech synthesis with natural language processing (NLP).
• Diego points out potential applications for online sales. Besides speech technology, it requires NLP-to-SQL (Structured Query Language) technology. This may be ready on some sites for 2017 Christmas shopping!
• Diego mentions two current noHold projects: a customer-facing application (the Sales Advisor), and an agent-facing application. Diego covers the details of the Sales Advisor and gives examples.
• Diego discusses levels of AI in virtual assistants. He gives examples of chatbots built from user documents, including executive orders from four U.S. presidents.
• Diego address the future of AI in sales and its impact. It is an excellent tool to augment sales capabilities. Diego gives an example for the enterprise, the Marketing Advisor, for augmented selling in groups of 500 SDRs.

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.

noHold Connects its own Albert with Amazon’s Alexa

March 30, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – noHold is excited to announce the availability of a connector that can link SICURA™ QuickStart to Amazon’s Alexa. QuickStart empowers non-programmers to create a bot (Albert) from any existing documents such as, product manuals, employee manuals, training documents, etc. Through the connector Albert can now easily turn a document into an Alexa skill. For example, say you want to extend Alexa to answer questions about your home. Today, to be able to achieve this goal, you would have to be a programmer, or at least very technically savvy. With Albert this is no longer the case. All you have to do is:

1. Create a document that contains FAQ’s about your home (i.e. where is the main valve for the water? Where is the electrical panel?)
2. Use QuickStart to create an Albert by ingesting the document
3. Use the connector to link Albert to Alexa

From that moment on, you can say, “Alexa, ask Albert where the water valve is?” and Alexa will answer back from the knowledge she obtains from Albert. This can be a pretty useful system, especially if your guests are accidentally flooding your home. 

Other use cases involve creating an Albert/Alexa combination that can answer questions in the boardroom, at a hotel concierge, in a company lobby, at the post office, in a classroom, etc. The possibilities are endless.

The next step is to take the connector from the lab and make it available to everybody with the click of a button. Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold said, “I am looking forward to the day when everybody with a QuickStart account and an Amazon Echo will be able to expand Alexa’s capabilities in minutes without having to be a programmer. With a bit of luck, that moment is around the corner.”

Throwback Thursday: Spacecrafts to Space Factories

In light of Throwback Thursday, I was doing some searching on what happened on this day in tech history. According to the blog, June 2, 1966 was when "NASA's lunar lander Surveyor lands in Oceanus Procellarum ("Ocean of Storms") on the Moon, becoming the first US spacecraft to soft-land on an extraterrestrial body." 

Photo Source

Fast forward to 2016, and people are imagining a future with more than just spacecrafts existing in space. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, recently talked about his thoughts on space and AI at this weeks Code Conference. He believes that to sustain the Earth, we should take high-energy production and move it into space. "Earth will be zoned residential and light industrial," he explained. "You shouldn't be doing heavy energy on earth. We can build gigantic chip factories in space." (theblaze.com) 

Another hot topic at the Code Conference was Artificial Intelligence. Amazon's CEO, as well as CEO's of Google and IBM all went on to emphasize the huge impact they foresee happening with AI in the near future. Even greater than what is happening right now. "Whether we call it AI, cognitive computer, or smart assistants, one thing's for sure. It's real. Tech giants are betting big on it. And we're just beginning to scratch the surface of what AI can do to enhance our lives and our work..." (Fox Business) 

www.nohold.com

Tech Giants Continue to Acquire A.I. Companies at Rapid Rates

Photo Source 

We have never seen technology progress as fast as it does in today's world. 

Within the last three years, it's no secret that corporate giants are extremely interested in Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). Major players such as Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Salesforce, and Yahoo have all started acquiring A.I. companies looking to advance their technology. 

Just in 2016 alone, 4 major acquisitions have already been made. This rapid growth in AI acquisitions is further validation that society is embracing AI, and top tech companies are constantly trying to improve this technology for their consumers.

With almost 2 decades of experience under our belt, we have always seen the A.I. market on a steady incline. It is great to see this spike in the market with everyone jumping on board this A.I. train. 

For more information about noHold, please visit www.nohold.com

Trusted Retailers Innovate the Traditional Customer Service Approach by Adding Robots as Staff

Photo Credit: newsroom.cisco.com

Over the past few years, online sales have increased tremendously and are expected to continue to rise to 10% of all US retail sales (Fitting Room Robots and Smart Mirrors: Can Retail Tech Save Stores?) Brick and mortar stores are trying to pull shoppers into the store, and are using advanced technologies to entice them to do so. 

As everyone is in the middle of holiday shopping, companies have been incorporating new technologies to accommodate the increased volume of shoppers, while still being able to provide excellent customer service. Orchard Supply Hardware is one of the companies focusing on customer service and innovation, and plans to appeal to customers by integrating OSHbots with staff. OSHbots are robotic customer assistants that help customers locate products in the store and provide them with information on the product and current promotions. Not only can they find products, but they can connect with employees from other Orchard stores when human intervention is needed. Check out this video to see OSHbots in action: 

Amazon is also utilizing robots to make sure packages get delivered on time this holiday season. Kiva's [company Amazon purchased in 2012] robots bring shelves of goods out of storage and carry them to employees, allowing Amazon to retrieve more items for more customers simultaneously. Amazon began using these robots in July of this year, and there are now more than 15,000 of them in 10 of the company's warehouses." (Robots Shipping Your Order this Holiday Season)

Artificial Intelligence and robotics are working together to revolutionize how we look at customer service. Do you think other retailers are going to adopt robotic sales associates? If so, how do you think customers will react?
www.nohold.com

How Will Amazon's Fire Phone Compare to the Rest? Should "MayDay" Evolve into a Virtual Assistant?

A couple weeks ago, Amazon unveiled their latest device to hit the market soon, the Fire Phone. As noted in the video, it has the look of standard smartphones, but inhabits a couple new features unique to the Fire Phone. For example, Dynamic Perspective takes 3D display technology to a whole new level. "The display is meant to give viewers a sense of looking deeper into the screen (technically called positive parallax) rather than creating images that "jump out" (negative parallax)." (How 'Dynamic Perspective' Brings 3D to the Amazon Fire Phone). 

With innovative components such as Dynamic Perspective and Firefly (a universal product scanner that allows you to identify and buy objects, in real time), you would think Amazon has a chance to compete with the top brands in the smartphone space (e.g. Samsung, Apple, and more). But with all these new features, a lot of technical support questions will follow. Similar to Amazon's Kindle Fire HDX, the Fire Phone will have a MayDay button to provide 24/7, live support via video chat. Using this as a first line of defense for support can quickly become expensive and time consuming. According to an analyst, Dan Miller, at Opus Research, "If the MayDay 'rep' continues to be a live agent, it will be a matter of training, workforce optimization and knowledge management. Yet I still maintain that, for MayDay to be done right, it is just a matter of time before it turns into a fully automated intelligent assistant, in which case it will depend on advances in life-like automated speech, natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML)." (Amazon's "Fire" Phone and MayDay Will Redefine "Mobile Assistance"). 

With the increasing volume of MayDay users approaching, do you agree that Amazon will need to turn MayDay into a Virtual Assistant? What about  the absence of a 'butler-style' Virtual Assistant (i.e. Siri, Google Now, Cortana, etc.). Will this effect sales and/or user satisfaction? Leave a comment and let us know what you think. 

www.nohold.com

Virtual Agents Enhance the Customer Experience within Handheld Devices

Lately, there has been much news about trusted brands expanding product lines to include mobile devices, as well as consolidation among vendors. Top PC manufacturers are starting to realize that to stay a competitor in the industry they need to branch out to the tablet, smartphone, and wearable device markets. For example, Lenovo recently acquired Motorola Mobility from Google with the desire to strengthen its position in the smartphone market (Lenovo to Acquire Motorola Mobility from Google). Also, Dell has been reaching beyond PC’s to solidify its stake in the tablet and mobile arena. Big name companies are also preparing for the wearable device boom. Intel jumped on the wearable train and acquired Basis Science, a provider of high-end fitness trackers, along with a few other companies that specialize in wearable tech (Intel Buys Fitness Band Maker Basis Science). Amazon's recent announcement of a smartphone, further validates the demand for not only mobile devices, but enforces the consumer desire for streaming media on the go. 

While Virtual Agents are known for the ability to troubleshoot issues and answer questions about desktops and laptops, they are also flexible enough to live on handheld devices. Their lightweight characteristics give them the ability to adapt to almost all environments. In fact, noHold's CEO has talked about a future where websites take a more proactive approach and begin by asking the visitor a question first; comparable to a concierge style Virtual Agent.

Do you see the future of websites (via PC’s or mobile devices) being more proactive, intuitive and interactive? Will trusted brands start using this concierge-like approach to seamlessly guide users through their websites? Leave a comment and let us know what you think.   

www.nohold.com

Mayday!!!

     This year, Amazon's Kindle Fire HD tablets came in at number 8 on the best tablets of 2013 from techradar.com. With the success of Kindle tablets, just recently Amazon introduced the Kindle Fire HDX. Among many other unique features, one of the most intriguing is the customer support option provided by clicking on the "Mayday" button. Once you push the button, a live support representative will pop up on your screen in the form of video chat. You can see the representative, but the representative cannot see you. However, the customer support agent does have the ability to see your screen, control your tablet, and draw arrows or lines on your screen to point you in the right direction. Though this seems like a great idea, it might run into a few problems with consumers and also with the company, Amazon.  

     Are people going to feel comfortable allowing a live person access into their tablet and having the ability to make changes? Privacy is at the top of everyone's list when dealing with personal devices and data security. Employees using the Mayday button at work allow support representatives access into company networks and data, which increases the potential of security breaches.

     Another factor to address...is it cost effective? How much will it cost the company per video chat for a live person to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to answer support questions... or to answer prank calls? Having an automated support representative to answer customer questions decreases the cost of support, while increasing customer satisfaction. 

     What do you think about Kindle's new Mayday feature? Do you think the benefits of a live support agent outweigh the cost?