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.”

noHold update: Conversational Interaction Conference, Advisors, and AI Symposium in Italy

2019 is turning out to be an exciting year for noHold. Here are just a few of the events that have already happened this quarter.

1. In March, noHold sponsored a local conference, Conversational Interactions 2019. There, Diego Ventura, noHold's Founder and  CEO, had the opportunity to join the keynote panel discussion regarding best practices for building a Virtual Assistant, as well as speak about noHold's newest technology, NLP2X is a talk titled Using Conversational AI to get the most out of your Enterprise Database.
2. Gonzaga University became a new client, providing its students and staff with noHold's AI technology to augment the way technical support is handled on campus.
3. In addition, we announced a new advisor, Joseph Pinto, to noHold's Board.
4. We are also very excited to be gearing up for our first AI Symposium which will take place July 2019 in Italy! For more details on the AI Symposium, please follow this link: http://www.nohold.com/aiyouwillneverforget/

We look forward to sharing more updates with you related to Virtual Assistants and AI in the future. 

www.nohold.com

AI World Conference & Expo 2018

AI World is getting closer. Next week, thousands of attendees will gather to learn how to use Artificial Intelligence to build a competitive advantage. noHold's CEO, Diego Ventura, will be speaking at the conference about automating customer service and technical support in call centers. Below is a short message from Diego: 

Hope to see you there!
www.nohold.com

One year ago today: Forbes Article Published on Albert in the House

In light of it being Flashback Friday,  I wanted to share a blogpost noHold wrote a year from today on how Artificial Intelligence is being used to help citizen around the US gain clarity on Presidential Executive Orders. Because, let's face it, some of those documents are rather lengthy and can be confusing to non-politicians. noHold wanted to give individuals a way to receive non-biased answers to their questions about these policies. 

noHold accomplished this by create Virtual Assistants (Albert) for a handful of Executive Orders signed by various Presidents. Citizens curious about these Executives Orders are able to ask questions to the Virtual Assistant such as "What is this about?" or "Who does this effect?"

When noHold was creating these Presidential Virtual Assistants, publications such as Forbes and The Next Web contacted noHolds's CEO, Diego Ventura, to write articles on the idea. 

Josiah Motley from The Next Web wrote, "Now there’s an AI available to everyone that can answer these questions for you. And while anything can have bias, even an AI with bad programming, using this new service from noHold is a great way to get straight-to-the-point answers and facts without having to sacrifice hours of your day digging through articles and government PDFs."

It was a great moment for noHold to be able to contribute to the community. I will end it with a quote from Diego, "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."

www.nohold.com

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-/ 

7,500 Educational Institutions use noHold's AI-based Virtual Assistant to Help Students and Teachers

August 28, 2018, MILPITAS, CA – noHold, Inc. has partnered with leaders in the training space to create a Virtual Assistant now used by more than 7,500 educational institutions.

The Virtual Assistant specializes in supporting teachers to create and administer classes, as well as answer student questions like “How do I sign up for the class?”, “Where can I find the syllabus?”, and “What are the pre-requisites for this class?”

The Virtual Assistant is able to answer these types of questions because:

·        It is built to understand plain English through a powerful Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine.

·        It is able to conduct a dialog with end users to confirm uncertain intents through an Inference Engine that serves as a Dialog Manager.

·        It is able to tap into its own repository of information that has grown organically based on the audience’s interests.

It took about six calendar weeks to build the Virtual Assistant, four for implementation and two for testing. The team included a Subject Matter Expert, a Knowledge Base Specialist and a part-time Manager for a total of 200 hours.

Three weeks after deployment, the Virtual Assistant is consistently helping thousands of students and teachers a month, and has an answer rate of 87%. Questions that cannot be handled automatically by the Virtual Assistant are promptly escalated to call center agents. The content of the exchange is also passed along, so that agents don’t have to ask the same questions and users don't have to repeat themselves.

The next version of the Virtual Assistant will be trained to answer IT type questions which will help faculty and students with computer, security and networking issues.

“There are several advantages related to deploying a Virtual Assistant. It can help the school reduce support costs, it is available 24/7, it can help new agents at the call center, and it can diligently capture the voice of the customer. More than 7,500 schools can now enjoy these benefits," said Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold, Inc.

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.

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 Gives its AI Platform a Voice Through Google Assistant

November 7, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – noHold, Inc. just announced the release of a Google Assistant Action called “Albert AI.” This connector empowers Albert customers to connect their own Bot to Google Assistant which is used on over 100 million devices. Devices that are compatible with Google Assistant include Google Home, smartphones, Android TV, Android Auto, smartwatches, and more.

This method has become the easiest way for people to get content on Google Assistant. Typically, creating a Google Action requires some programming knowledge and time. With noHold’s connector, no programming skills are required and your Bot can be on Google Assistant in minutes. All you need is a device with Google Assistant, an Albert account, and access to Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

There are only a few steps to creating a bot and making it live on Google Assistant:

1. Sign up for an Albert PRO account, create a document, and upload to the SICURA™ QuickStart platform.
2. In the top right, click the drop down menu and select “Albert Voice Support” followed by “Google Assistant."
3. Define a short phrase that will be used to request your Albert.
4. To invoke your bot via Google Assistant, say “Okay Google, talk to Albert AI about (phrase from step 3).” From that moment on you can speak to your Albert.

Click here for a short video demonstrating how an Executive Assistant leveraged Albert on Google Assistant.

We can think of applications for the business world and personal life. Imagine an Albert on Google that plays scavenger hunts with your kids, or that settles a dispute for whose turn it is to wash the dishes. Also at work, answering questions if the projector is not working or where the toner for the printer is, etc.

Diego Ventura, CEO and founder of noHold says, “Voice enabling our platform is an important step in making sure that the Virtual Assistants built with SICURA™ are a) available on multiple channels b) easily built with existing documents c) they can connect with each other and d) they can speak multiple languages.”

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.”   

CEO of noHold Discusses Albert for Presidential Executive Orders

Just a couple weeks ago, noHold announced Albert in the House. This is a little project we took on to demonstrate how easy and versatile Albert can be. We took Presidential Executive Orders from various Presidents, and uploaded them to the SICURA QuickStart platform. In the end, we were able to take these documents straight from the official White House website and produce an Albert that knows all about these Executive Orders. 

From this announcement, Albert in the House made headlines in some a couple different publications including Forbes and The Next Web. 

"Albert can answer questions like 'What is the purpose of this order' or 'Does this order supersede any other order' and is completely bi-partisan. It doesn't care about your political leanings. 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." Curtis Silver, Forbes

For more information, Diego Ventura, CEO and Founder of noHold, recorded a quick vlog explaining what it is, how to make one, and why it is important for citizens to be empowered with unbiased information. 

noHold builds a Connector Enabling SICURA QuickStart™ to Integrate with Salesforce

July 31, 2017, MILPITAS, CA –noHold has designed Albert to be accessible through multiple channels, without the need to make a new bot for each of them. This is one of the unique features of creating a Virtual Assistant with SICURA™ QuickStart. In the past, noHold has announced various connectors that enable Albert to live on different platforms such as Spark, Facebook, Alexa, and more. noHold has officially added Salesforce to that list.

noHold’s Salesforce connector enables Sales Mangers to easily empower their sales teams with knowledge about products, procedures, company policies, or any content needed for a specific team. Since the content is managed through a Word document, it can be easily created and updated. Using Albert on Salesforce allows individuals to find answers to questions on their own terms, 24/7. For example, if a sales person needed to know when a lead should be converted into a contact, they could click on the Albert tab that knows about specific company procedures. Another example could be how to handle certain tasks, or looking up specific product features. The possibilities are endless.

Users can easily add Albert as a tab in the toolbar, and interact with Albert directly from within Salesforce. The process to add Albert does not require programming skills or extensive knowledge of Salesforce. Simply login to Salesforce and click the ‘+’ in the toolbar to open the ‘all tabs’ page. Select customize my tabs. In the left menu, click on create to expand, and then click tabs. Under web tabs, click new, then fill in the blanks as prompted. After saving, Albert will appear immediately in the toolbar. To watch a visual step by step tutorial for more details, click here.

Diego Ventura, Founder and CEO of noHold, adds, “The effectiveness of a sales team is directly correlated to its ability to generate revenue from new and existing customers. Providing the team with easy and direct access to Albert’s knowledge right from within Salesforce is strategic to obtaining this goal.”

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 Adds Two Bots to Cisco’s Spark Depot

May 30, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – noHold, the recognized leader in web based self-services, is proud to announce that Cisco’s Spark Depot now includes two bots noHold has created using its own SICURA™ AI platform. The Spark Depot is a place for users to browse through and add “integrations and bots that can accelerate business outcomes” to their own implementation of Spark. The bots provided by noHold include:

• SparkHelp Bot- SparkHelp empowers users to find answers about Cisco Spark anytime, directly from the Cisco Spark space.
• WebEx Bot- WebEx bot can answer common “how to” questions about WebEx. To start a chat with the WebEx bot is just like starting a chat with a live person directly from within a Spark room.

To position these bots on the Spark Depot, noHold’s engineering team built a connector that allows users to leverage noHold’s existing chatbots directly within the Cisco Spark platform, adding an extra level of convenience for Spark users. The project took only a couple of weeks, and now this effort can be leveraged by any company that has built a Virtual Assistant using noHold’s AI platform, SICURA. In this sense, SICURA is one of the fastest ways to build a bot for Spark.

The Cisco Spark connector is an important component in achieving the multi-channel strategy pursued by noHold. Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold adds, “We want to make sure that the customers who have invested in our solution, can leverage it on different channels. If you build a Virtual Assistant with SICURA you can launch it on the Web, on Alexa, on Facebook M, and today, also on Cisco Spark.”

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.

Press Contact

Veronica Cech

Marketing Associate

vcech@nohold.com   

408.946.9200 ext. 356

All other product and service names are the property of their respective owners.

How to Add Albert to Your Website

One of the great things about creating a bot through SICURA QuickStart is the bot you create can be used on various channels. For this particular blog, I wanted to share a quick how-to video on positioning Albert on your website. Check it out:



As you see, the video describes two methods for adding Albert to your website: a JavaScript link and an iframe. With minimal effort and in a matter of minutes, you can provide your audience access to your personal bot online.To download the code used in the video to add Albert to the website, go to the support and resources page. Scroll down until you see "Download the Code to Add Albert to Website." This will give you access to a Word document with the code needed. 

The website is not the only place you can leverage your Albert. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Salesforce, Spark, and more can all be channels for people to interact with your bot. And the best part, you only have to do the work of creating a bot once. Stay tuned for some more "how-to" videos and leave a comment below to let me know if you are interested in learning more about a specific channel.
www.albertai.com
www.nohold.com

How to Leverage Artificial Intelligence in the Call Center to Improve Productivity

Businesses face many different challenges when it comes to the Call Center. We believe there are some definite use cases for bringing Artificial Intelligence into the Call Center to alleviate some of these pain points. 

Here are a few ways a Virtual Assistant that is available to your agents will add value to your business, and tackle some of the challenges that these professionals face.

First off, churn can be high in some call centers, which can be expensive for companies. It can take up to a month for new agents to train and become productive. Providing a bot for these new agents to access at anytime during a customer interaction, can make them better prepared to handle calls, in a shorter amount of time; making them be just as productive as seasoned agents.

Another important aspect of the Call Center, is for agents to know how companies want them to respond based on their brand. Having a bot that knows exactly how you want your agents to answer questions, increases consistency and compliance within the call center. 

Even seasoned agents can use some help, too. Sometimes agents need to know a little bit of information about a plethora of products and services. Having a bot there as a reminder, or to keep up to date on ever changing products can be a powerful resource.  

Some of noHold's enterprise customers have Virtual Assistants implemented for their Call Centers already and have seen advantages such as decreased Average Handle Time (AHT), increased customer satisfaction, lower churn, and more. Click here to learn more about this story. 

Using Albert, you can create a similar experience for your customers using a word document containing all the information you want your Call Center agents to know and uploading it to the QuickStart platform. Then, the information they need will be readily available right at their fingertip. 

If you are interested, here are a few links to magazines we have found that write specifically about the Call Center space.
http://www.connectionsmagazine.com/
https://www.contactcenterworld.com/
http://www.icmi.com/

Have a great weekend!

noHold Releases Next Generation of Albert

February 27, 2017, MILPITAS, CA – Last month, noHold announced SICURA™ QuickStart, the first platform designed to allow non-programmers to create a chatbot (Albert). Today, noHold is excited to introduce the next generation of Albert. There are many new features implemented to make creating a quality bot easy for anyone.

Here is a list of the new features offered on the platform:

• Phrases Digital Signature (PDS) – This is a new algorithm that allows Albert to no longer rely solely on the Headings to retrieve information. Now, Albert can analyze the entire document (headings and content) to determine what the end user is asking and provide the most accurate solution.
• Synonyms list – Directly within your document, you have the ability to create a list of synonyms for words that are specific to your business. For example whether Joe asks about “Droid settings”, or “Android settings”, Albert understands they are the same questions, because “Droid” and “Android” are set as synonyms.
• Albert Etiquette – This feature gives users the ability to add some personality to Albert. Simply add a few phrases and answers to your document that you would like Albert to answer in a certain way. For example, if someone asks Albert a silly question like “what is your favorite color?” or “why is the sky blue?” You can let Albert know exactly how you would want him to respond. This sort of one off phrase adds character to Albert.
•  Dialog configuration – Users can now manipulate the dialog settings. This includes changing greeting messages, escalation phrases when Albert does not know the answer, and escalation links for further assistance.

In addition to the new features mentioned above, noHold also introduces SICURA QuickStart PRO, making Albert available for commercial use. Features that are exclusive to PRO users include:

• Commercial Use – Companies are able to create and distribute business chatbots, either for external or internal use for little cost.
• Customization of the User Interface (UI) - The free version offers a standard UI that is not customizable. With PRO, account holders have the ability to easily change colors, add company logos, and more all without touching the HTML.
• Multiple Alberts – There are many advantages to having more than one Albert. For example, a company can leverage different Alberts to be knowledgeable about various business units. There can be one bot that knows all about support questions that is positioned on the website for external purposes. Then, another Albert can know about HR policies/company manuals used internally for employees.
• Key encrypted URLs – An extra level of security was added to ensure that Alberts that contain company sensitive information (particularly for internal use), stay private.

Diego Ventura, CEO of noHold says, “Companies are surprising us every day in how they are using Albert. A dealership uses Albert to train and onboard new employees. A technology company is connecting Albert to Near Field Communication (NFC) tags to activate Albert when a user phone gets close to a specific device. A design agency uses Albert to rapidly prototype new bots. We would have never thought about these applications if it weren’t for our customers.”

It is great to be able to offer a more dynamic option to users, still without needing programming skills, and for very little cost. To upgrade your personal account to PRO is as little as $100/month. To sign up for a PRO account, please click here.

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. 

noHold Launches SICURA™ QuickStart

Empowering non-programmers to create their own Virtual Assistant (bot)

December 6, 2016, MILPITAS, CA – noHold announces SICURA™ QuickStart, a platform designed to make creating a Virtual Assistant (Albert) easy for anyone with a basic understanding of Microsoft® Word or Google® Docs.

Now, if you are a small business owner you can create a Virtual Assistant out of the manual for your product(s). If you are a large enterprise you can create a Virtual Assistant out of an Employee Handbook. Personal use is possible, too. For example, students can create a Virtual Assistant out of their last research paper.

According to Business Insider, in April of 2015 the number of messaging application users surpassed the number of social application users.  Given that the interaction paradigm of a messaging application is very similar to the paradigm of a Virtual Assistant (bot), the popularity of Virtual Assistants has increased exponentially. Recognizing this growing trend, noHold engineered SICURA QuickStart as a way to make creating and managing AI simple for anyone.

To make your own Albert, go to www.albertai.com, and click sign up in the top right navigation bar. Follow a few simple instructions to get a free personal account, and once you have access you will be ready to start teaching Albert anything you want. Upon completion of training Albert (a process that takes seconds), a mobile-friendly URL is provided. This URL can be placed anywhere you like, making integrating with websites, social media, and collaboration platforms easy. Metrics are also available to monitor weekly usage and identify exactly what users are asking your Albert.

CEO of noHold, Diego Ventura, goes on to say, “I don’t believe the next generation AI will be built by one single big company, instead, it will be the result of the collaboration of millions of people who have created their own Virtual Assistants and are able to connect them together. Who knows, maybe a lot of them will be called Albert.”

The 'Bot' Controversy: Revolutionary or Sham?

Photo source

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