AWS Touts Partners' Conversational AI Solutions

Amazon Web Services is putting the focus on partners' conversational artificial intelligence (CAI) solutions that could spell the end of organizations' customers screaming "representative" to an interactive voice response phone system or getting stuck in a dead-end or circular digital chat loop. AWS is highlighting solutions from consulting partners including Cation Consulting, Deloitte Consulting, Quantiphi and TensorIoT and technology partners including NLX, ServisBOT and XAPP AI that allow organizations to deploy chatbots, virtual assistants and interactive voice response systems that incorporate AWS artificial intelligence and machine learning services. Their solutions employ services including Amazon Kendra, a machine learning-powered search tool that allows users to search unstructured text using natural language; Amazon Lex, a service for building conversational interfaces into applications using voice and text; and Amazon Polly, a text-to-speech service that converts text into lifelike speech. The new partner initiative comes as the demand for CAI interfaces continues to grow, according to Arte Merritt, who leads AWS partnerships for contact center intelligence and conversational AI. End-customers increasingly prefer to interact with businesses on digital channels, and businesses want to increase user satisfaction, reduce operational costs and streamline business processes, Merritt said in a blog post.