AI is the future of customer interaction – but it probably won't be Microsoft's Zo

The vast majority of interactive AIs (chatbots, conversational interfaces etcetera) operate on the principle of conversation trees – making them functional but uninspiring to interact with. In most cases, the programmer defines questions and a list of possible responses that the AI can return – in a similar way that Alexa Skills and Google Home Actions are built. These chatbot programs then use natural language processing to parse consumer responses, determine the nearest applicable answer they are programmed with and return this. However, the future of customer interaction will require AIs to rise above conversation trees and become at least a little more human. In order to fulfil their apparent destiny and render the human-staffed customer service department obsolete, they will need to be able to parse intent and emotion as well as meaning.