Danny Tomsett, CEO of FaceMe (faceme.com), delivers an interesting overview of the current state of technology in regard to digital human personas and chatbots. Tomsett’s company’s mission is to enhance emotional connections in the digital world. FaceMe’s platform is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and is designed to amplify a brand’s ability to engage with users by creating real-time, tailored interactions with interesting personas that can build true connections. As FaceMe’s digital personas connect via a human face, consumers and users are more engaged, as they would be when talking to a real human being, and connections bring value. With body language, expression, and tone, meaningful experiences can be delivered that will enhance customers’ positive feelings for their experience and increase opportunities for business success, as well as customer retention.

Tomsett explains that while FaceMe is not a chatbot company, their platform sits atop the chatbot so to speak and is able to take the text generated via a chatbot and synthesize that in real-time with voice, body language, expression, and tone. Tomsett states that basic chatbots are perfect for rudimentary transactions such as asking about a bank balance or something dry such as that, but for transactions that may need coaching, advisory input, persuasion, or empathy, etc., FaceMe provides a much more sophisticated, grounded emotionally-connected experience. The neuroscience of how we connect to body language, expression, and emotion can be portrayed in a digital human without having to go off script. Digital humans are life-like but not to the extent that anyone would assume they are real humans, but Tomsett explains that it is never necessary to fool anyone, nor do they try. For although users understand the life-like digital humans are not, in fact, human at all, the users can achieve a connected experience that is satisfying nonetheless.

The AI experience expert discusses some of the limitations of traditional chatbots. One area in which chatbots may fail is with intent. Tomsett explains that many times a user will interact with a chatbot and not get the result he or she is looking for, and in most of these cases a user will simply leave the chat and not provide any feedback. But a digital human provides a better chance of mitigating this sort of user information dead end and thus has a significantly better chance of providing the content that the user was seeking, retaining their interest and keeping them engaged.

FaceMe’s visual customer experience utilizes machine learning with multimodal inputs such as context and situational awareness, as well as emotional understanding, which enrich the user’s connection. Additionally, the platform utilizes multi-modal computer vision to achieve facial, speech, and object recognition that thoroughly improves the AI. And it can support up to a staggering one million conversations simultaneously, 24/7, anywhere, on any channel, thus scalability is never a problem.

Tomsett expounds upon other unique qualities that the FaceMe digital human persona experience brings, such as encouragement and a space that is free of judgment. Thus, if a user has questions or curiosities, they can put forth their ideas or questions and feel free; they can receive encouragement and never have to feel any anxiety about feeling judged if they are less than confident about their knowledge in a certain area. This quality greatly enhances a user’s experience, providing a safe, caring environment to freely ask questions and receive real-time advisory input.

Tomsett imparts that as their digital human experience handles the bulk of the front-end connection with most users and consumers, this enables system administrators and technical support staff to have more time to deal with customers who have more complex issues and concerns. Over the next decade, Tomsett expects to see AI leading the way in consumer interaction with possibly as little as 15% of interactions being with actual humans. And he states that digital humans will penetrate and engulf the marketplace in many areas from digital commerce, to retail, healthcare, education and beyond.

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