Cloud communication platform Twilio has announced a new tool called Autopilot, which can turn Amazon Echo and Google Home devices into a direct customer service channel for companies.
Autopilot is a development tool which streamlines artificial intelligence-based chatbots and the customer self-service process.
Companies can use Autopilot to train their customer service chatbots to answer general support questions. When a support call needs a real person to step in, the tool will identify the situation and transfer the call to the support representative.
One application is that users can ask an insurance company through Alexa about their claim status, and the Autopilot will fetch the claim from the insurance company’s system and translate back to Alexa.
Since companies are already creating Alexa voice skills and interact brand services with customers via voice, so why not let customers ask service or product questions directly with the voice assistant? The voice assistant sitting in many of customers’ homes will become a direct service channel to interact with companies.
Twilio pointed out that companies won’t need to change one line of code for this chatbot to work on Google Assistant.
Autopilot is built up by three components: the natural language understanding framework allowing developers to build a customized model; the Conversational Application Platform to control a chatbot’s tone and language; and the Omni-channel Hub which decides which system channels to communicate with in a conversation.
“Contact centers have been around for ever and ever, but they are a significant cost to companies. Autopilot is a conversational AI platform to help companies service customers at a scale,” said Nico Acosta, director of product and engineering at Twilio, to Voicebot.
Autopilot can be used on Alexa skill, Google Action and SMS service. It will be priced at US$0.001 per turn in conversation.
Twilio was first known for its web service APIs, which enable Airbnb and Uber users to directly text or call the host/driver in the mobile app. The company was founded in 2008 and went public in 2016.