Nuance Communications, Inc. and Rakuten Mobile, Inc. announced a strategic partnership to add Nuance Intelligent Engagement AI Services to the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP). As a result, RCP becomes the first-ever mobile communications, cloud-native, and virtualized platform to have Nuance Conversational and Engagement AI services built-in.

Through the Nuance-Rakuten Mobile partnership, RCP will now offer Rakuten Group companies the ability to leverage:

• Conversational AI Services: cloud-native software with application programming interfaces (APIs) for speech recognition, text-to-speech, natural language understanding, and advanced dialog management that enable AI-powered experiences including the ability to identify users via biometrics, and allow individuals to engage with applications and devices by voice
• Engagement AI Services: digital engagement API’s that enable self-service virtual assistants and seamless escalation to live agents, enabling a personalized, omni-channel customer experience with built-in support for live and asynchronous messaging and the ability to provide agents with data-driven recommendations and next-best-action
• Nuance Mix™ Rapid AppDev Environment: enterprise-grade conversational AI tooling platform that enables organizations to rapidly develop, test, deploy, and optimize virtual assistant, natural language, and speech solutions – reducing development and optimization time by more than 50 percent

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The Rakuten Virtual Assistant within Rakuten Link, Rakuten’s native communication app based on Rich Communication Services (RCS) standards that brings together Rakuten services within a single app, is the first instance of the integration of RCP, providing Rakuten Mobile customers with the ability to access self-service features by voice or by text.

According to technology research firm Omdia, as the global race to 5G advances, enterprises will need to continue their digital transformation journeys to create frictionless, personalized, and automated customer experiences. This requires communication service providers (CSPs) to deploy emerging customer experience (CX) applications that can easily integrate into enterprise systems, providing the ability to anticipate potential problems and orchestrate customer outreach.

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“With Rakuten Cloud Platform, we are creating an innovative telco cloud platform that will drive a better AI-based customer engagement experience,” said Tareq Amin, Representative Director, Executive Vice President and CTO of Rakuten Mobile. “We’re excited about the innovations this will enable Rakuten Group companies to deliver and the potential for bringing it to organizations globally to leverage via Rakuten Cloud Platform.”

Nuance’s AI-powered customer engagement for Rakuten Mobile’s RCP provides enterprises with a unique set of open, modular, and cloud-native services that can be deployed in any cloud environment.

“Our investment in cloud-native technologies and laser-focus on outcome-driven verticalized solutions allows us to partner with some of the world’s most innovative companies to integrate Nuance technologies in a flexible way, embedding into client workflows and safeguarding consumer data,” said Joe Petro, CTO, Nuance. “The recent virtual assistant deployment with Rakuten Mobile on RCP is evidence of that, and we see great potential for Nuance’s AI solutions as organizations around the globe look to advance customer experiences and drive new revenue opportunities through cloud-based infrastructures and 5G networks.”

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