PolyAI Ltd. is an ambitious startup that creates artificial voices to replace call center operators. Based in London, it has raised $28 million to bring AI-powered customer service to Metro Bank Plc, BP Plc and more. The idea is that instead of the nightmare of dialing random digits in a decision tree, you can instead ask to, say, book a table and a voice -- with just the slightest inflection of its machine-learning origins -- responds with great civility. But there was a brief moment two years ago when it wasn't polite at all. A software developer with PolyAI who was testing the system, asked about booking a table for himself and a Serbian friend. "Yes, we allow children at the restaurant," the voice bot replied, according to PolyAI founder Nikola Mrksic.

Artificial intelligence has affected our everyday lives, and we realize it isn't a scary concept as people once thought of it. Every year, we see AI introducing new ways to engage users, drives sales and make the processes convenient. In the past years, we witnessed the popularity and effectiveness of AI bots and how they made our lives and jobs easier. Companies in 2019 have been able to access and implement this life-changing technology. Look around yourself if you don't trust me and note all kinds of interesting AI uses.

Natalia Kossobokova is the Content Marketing Manager at CGS. She spearheads the development of global marketing content which includes videos, blog posts, newsletters, editorials, emails and other marketing projects. In our second episode, CGS explore whether chatbots are the future of customer service or do customer still prefer phone calls? CGS recently conducted a consumer survey of 1,000 US consumers where they asked them to weigh in on their likes and dislikes around customer service interactions. Host Evan Aldo is joined by Richard R. Shapiro, who is the Founder and President of the Center for Client Retention and a leading authority in the area of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

"We expect global investment in artificial intelligence to continue at a rapid pace, as the underlying technologies supporting AI mature and both incumbent banks and fintechs look to find ways to embed financial services offerings into home automation systems and other IoT enabled products," he says. Given financial services is highly regulated, the deployment of AI in banking will be accompanied by deep consideration of ethics and legal liability. As Microsoft's managing director, Steven Worrall, will tell The Australian Financial Review Business Summit on Wednesday – in a special session on the impact of disruptive technologies – artificial intelligence can be used to help solve big problems, but just because technology can do something, doesn't mean it should.

In April 2016, Facebook launched an open version of Messenger which invited developers to create artificial intelligence chatbots that would interact with Facebook users. The excitement that followed was immediate, and by June 2016, 11,000 bots had been made available. Chatbots were predicted to change the way consumers and brands interacted. Interactions like calling a company's customer service line and punching in a number to select a menu option, or locating a confirmation email and printing the confirmation code, were going to be replaced by the help of brand chatbots. All of our online purchases, dinner reservations, trip details, etc. were going to be handled and taken care of all within our messaging apps.