New tool enables live agents to effortlessly optimize bots and upskill into AI roles

LivePerson, Inc., a global leader in Conversational AI, announced the launch of AI Annotator™, a new tool automating brand-consumer conservations faster than ever before by harnessing the expertise of agents to improve Conversational AI.

Until today, tuning Conversational AI bots required a lengthy optimization process, carried out by scarce, expensive data science and developer talent. With AI Annotator, a brand’s contact center agents can flag areas for improvement and suggest solutions in just seconds, all while going about their day-to-day tasks. This new way to optimize Conversational AI crowdsources feedback from agents who are already experts at working with customers, reducing the time and effort to make fully functional bots to a fraction of what they were before.

Marketing Technology News: ironSource Acquires Creative Management Platform Luna Labs

Consumers are making a permanent shift to adopting conversational commerce, flocking to brands they can message on channels like SMS, WhatsApp, Apple Business Chat, Facebook Messenger, and brand websites and apps. Since bots can handle exponentially more conversations than human agents — and respond to customers instantly — optimizing their performance with AI Annotator makes it simple and cost-effective to:

• Hold high-impact messaging conversations with more customers faster than ever
• Amplify the impact of every bot optimization by applying them to all future conversations
• Expand Conversational AI into more customer care, marketing, and sales use cases
• Increase employee engagement and reduce attrition by providing exciting new career paths, like bot tuner and bot manager, for the AI-driven economy

“Without AI Annotator, new automations typically require a protracted optimization cycle by technical experts before they’re ready for prime time. In a world that changes overnight, brands simply can’t afford to settle for this stagnation,” said Rob LoCascio, founder and CEO of LivePerson. “With AI Annotator, the agents that know customers best can make these changes in an instant, helping brands stay on the cutting edge of conversational commerce with no need for additional expensive headcount to get the job done.”

Marketing Technology News: McFadyen Digital Acquires Commerce Consultancy Cerebrik

How AI Annotator works

When a brand’s bot has trouble understanding a phrase a customer uses in a conversation, AI Annotator instantly surfaces the issue to the brand’s agents, who can then use a simple point-and-click interface to annotate the conversation, or recommend what the bot should do.

Because agents are deeply experienced in identifying consumer needs and how to handle them, they are perfectly positioned to provide this ongoing feedback in ways that will best satisfy customers.

“AI Annotator puts the power of AI into the hands of the people who truly understand what customers want,” said Alex Spinelli, CTO at LivePerson. “Bringing them into the bot-tuning cycle means better conversations between brands and customers, plus better career options for the agents themselves as they gain experience working with AI and automation.”

As soon as an agent makes an annotation, AI Annotator routes it to a manager for approval. Once approved, all future uses of similar phrases will be automatically identified and handled by the automation.

AI Annotator provides extensive reporting to help brands track how conversations are being improved and how agents are making an impact on bot optimization. It is fully integrated into LivePerson’s industry-leading Conversational Cloud, where the world’s largest brands build and run AI-powered automations on popular messaging channels, websites, and apps. Brands using the Conversational Cloud have seen results including higher qualified leads 2.5x more likely to convert to sales, up to 20% increases in average order value and customer satisfaction, and 50% decreases in labor costs and agent attrition.

Marketing Technology News: Saggezza Salesforce Practice Surges as Companies Engage Customers Remotely Amid COVID-19