Deploying more conversational chatbots

The comedian Bill Burr has said he refuses to call into automated customer service lines for fear that, years later on his death bed, all he'll be able to think about are the moments he wasted dealing with chatbots. Indeed, the frustrating experience of trying to complete even the most straightforward task through an automated customer service line is enough to make anyone question the purpose of life. Now the startup Posh is trying to make conversations with chatbots more natural and less maddening. It's accomplishing this with an artificial intelligence-powered system that uses "conversational memory" to help users complete tasks. "We noticed bots in general would take what the user said at face value, without connecting the dots of what was said before in the conversation," says Posh co-founder and CEO Karan Kashyap '17, SM '17.