noHold’s AI Integrates with Facebook’s Messenger Platform

Connecting the Social Media Network’s 900 Million Users to their Own Virtual Assistants

November 10, 2016, MILPITAS, CA – noHold, creators of AI-powered virtual assistants for enterprise and beyond, today launched a connector to Facebook’s Messenger platform, enabling users to interact with noHold Virtual Assistants directly from the social giant’s Messaging app. 

According to a report from Business Insider’s Intelligence division, at the beginning of 2015, the number of messaging app users surpassed social media users. Since Virtual Assistants closely resemble the messaging app paradigm, this user shift opened the door for businesses to utilize Virtual Assistants to provide a scalable way to engage with their customers 24/7 on these types of platforms. 

Diego Ventura, CEO and founder of noHold adds, “Our objective is to make it simple for non-programmers to create a Virtual Assistant. It is also important to make sure that same Virtual Assistant is reachable from any channel an end user prefers. The popularity of Facebook, as well as the large business presence, made it an obvious choice for us to connect to.”

noHold has been able to embed our clients’ Virtual Assistants to their company Facebook page for some time. This difference with this connector is its ability to live directly within Facebook’s Messaging interface. A user simply types the name of the Virtual Assistant for the company they are inquiring within Facebook Messenger’s search bar, clicks on the associated icon and the chat window will appear. It has the same look and feel as chatting with a human, but the interaction is powered by Artificial Intelligence. 

Take for example a company that already has a Virtual Assistant on their website, such as Dell. If I was chatting with my friend on Facebook Messenger about the recent sale on Dell laptops, wouldn’t it be convenient if from the same messaging platform I could chat with a Virtual Assistant that knew everything about Dell products. This new connector makes that possible. 

While bots are not new to Facebook Messenger, the current bots are not always helpful. It is inspiring to see people trying to create bots, but it is important that the platform used to create them is easy to use by everyone. There are a few key differentiators that make this connector unique:

• It can connect to an entire platform that can handle creating thousands of bots.
• The technology powering these bots is familiar, enabling an intuitive and interactive end user experience. 
• Allows you to develop one bot and repurpose that same bot throughout different channels (social media, collaboration platforms, etc).

For more from Diego on this topic, click here to watch a short clip about this integration.

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 or subscribe to noHold’s vlog to hear more from CEO, Diego Ventura.

 

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The 'Bot' Controversy: Revolutionary or Sham?

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Thanks to Facebook's Messenger platform, the term bot has exploded. Many big names are investing in this type of technology, but there seems to be a bit of a debate surrounding the topic of bots. 

When they were first announced on Facebook, it was an exciting new thing for people to try. But that excitement quickly dwindled when users were receiving more error messages than answers. This caused some major frustration, and put a lot of doubt in peoples' minds on whether this would really stick. Even Facebook Messenger chief, David Marcus spoke about how bots have been over hyped, and under delivered, "...bots have suffered from a perception that they are not nearly as useful as they were advertised to be earlier this year by tech giants including Facebook, Google, and Microsoft" (The Verge).So, the question remains, are bots (aka Virtual Assistants) going to revolutionize consumer lives and businesses, or is it a dying trend. 

From our perspective, Virtual Assistants have been improving businesses for a while now (since 1999 in our case), and consumers have already been growing accustomed to using AI for a few years (primarily when Siri came out, followed by other Virtual Personal Assistants). It is apparent that the market has continued to grow tremendously over the past decade or so. 

While this market is strengthening, it is obvious that AI and Virtual Assistants are not at their peak, and there is plenty of work to be done from a technology vantage point, but we believe, and leading analyst firms agree, that Virtual Assistants are here to stay. In fact, a few years ago, Gartner made a prediction that "Virtual personal assistant usage in business grows more quickly in 2017 and 2018 than iPad usage did in 2010 and 2011" (Gartner Reveals Top Predictions for IT Organizations and Users for 2014 and Beyond).

noHold has been creating Virtual Assistants for over 15 years, so it is exciting to see the progression AI has made from the beginning, and the potential for the future. As for the present, it is important for companies to produce quality bots that provide interactive and diagnostic conversations, instead of creating static experiences that causes customers to come out unsatisfied. Here are 3 elements to keep in mind to make sure your bot delivers:

• Provide a great end user experience
• Easy to create and maintain by administrators
• Connects to multiple channels

These are just a few, for more information/tips on how to implement a quality bot please contact us here.

What is your opinion on the bot revolution? How can they improve? And where do you see them going in the future?
Have a wonderful weekend!
www.nohold.com

How to Reach 900 Million Users

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One of the most important aspects of creating a successful Virtual Assistant is making sure it is readily available for end users. Its evident that people are embracing Artificial Intelligence in their everyday lives, and companies are investing into it at an exponential rate. Last year alone, $8.5 billion was spent on enhance AI, four times the amount spent in 2010 (economist.com). With the demand for AI continuing to grow, and the technology only becoming more advanced, it is important to strategically place Virtual Assistant to reach the most number of users. 

Before, company websites and mobile devices were the primary way to access a Virtual Assistant. Now, with these large companies adopting A.I. practices and the user base they have, Virtual Assistants can be accessed through a wide array of platforms, reaching a broader range of users, and ultimately, potential customers. 

For example, the latest Facebook Messenger announcement, allowing end users to interact with Artificial Intelligence (they refer to it as chatbots). Using API connectors, Virtual Assistants can plug into Facebook's Messenger Platform, connecting to their audience of over 900 million users world wide.

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It doesn't just apply to Facebook's platform though.There are so many platforms like Facebook's M that Virtual Assistants can integrate with such as: Siri, Cortana, Google Now, Amazon Echo's Alexa, Cisco's Spark, Microsoft Skype and more. By moving beyond the web and mobile, companies are able to reach a greater amount of people that already exist on these platforms.  
www.nohold.com