The Customer Service Chatbots Are Getting Smarter

IPsoft Inc.’s Amelia is a virtual, text-based customer service agent that accurately resolves requests as much as 90 percent of the time, according to client SEB, a European financial-services firm. It’s close, IPsoft says, to becoming indistinguishable from humans.

Built by analyzing text chats from top customer service workers, Amelia can handle thousands of requests simultaneously, day or night, says IPsoft Chief Executive Officer Chetan Dube. He says the system frees up humans for more creative pursuits.

Background: Dube, an Indian-born computer science professor, left New York University in 1998 to found IPsoft, which specializes in IT automation for businesses. The company introduced Amelia in 2014; users include American International Group, Deloitte, Electronic Arts, Royal Caribbean, and UBS.

Tasks: Amelia, whose avatar is based on Lauren Hayes, a model, answers customer questions and processes transactions (opening accounts, moving money) through a chat window in a browser or on a mobile app. Customer service agents monitor interactions and guide the AI through any tricky conversation trees for future reference.

Investment: Dube says a pair of family trusts keep IPsoft afloat, though he won’t say how much they’ve invested. In the $12 billion market for development of artificial intelligence, customer service is the top spending category, according to researcher IDC.