IBM Watson

Content on this page is for a product or feature in controlled release (CR). If you are not part of the CR group and would like more information, contact your CXone Account Representative.

Permissions Required: View Scripts, Create/Edit Scripts

IBM Watson Assistant is a platform you can use to develop virtual agent bots for your organization. You can integrate them into CXone for voice and ACD chat channels.

Virtual agent bots interpret what your contacts say or type and respond appropriately. They do this using technologies such as:

Virtual agents are flexible and can provide a range of functions to suit the needs of your organization. For example, you can design your virtual agent to handle a few simple tasks or to serve as a complex interactive digital agent.

To use IBM Watson Assistant bots with CXone, contact your CXone Account Representative. Setup for IBM Watson happens outside of Virtual Agent Hub and the custom scripting requires additional assistance.

Conversation Flow for Voice and Chat Bots

During an interaction, the Studio action used in the script acts like a bridge between CXone and the virtual agent. It passes replies back and forth between the script and the bot. For voice interactions, the contact's utterancesClosed What a contact says or types. are transcribedClosed Also called STT, this process converts spoken language to text. into text so the virtual agent can analyze them. The virtual agent's responses are converted into synthesized speech using a text-to-speechClosed Allows users to enter recorded prompts as text and use a computer-generated voice to speak the content. service before being sent to the contact.

The virtual agent analyzes the contact's utterances to understand the intent for each one. Intents are the purpose or meaning behind what a person says. When the intent is identified, the virtual agent sends a response to the contact. The script passes it to the contact. When the conversation is complete, or if at any point the contact needs a live agent, Amelia lets the virtual agent action know. The Studio script continues, transferring the contact to a live agent if needed.

The conversation flow has some slight differences depending on the virtual agent Closed A software application that handles customer interactions in place of a live human agent. Studio actionClosed Performs a process within a Studio script, such as collecting customer data, playing a message or music, or routing a contact to an agent. you use. There are two types of virtual agent Studio actions. Conversation actions handle very simple virtual agents and exchange actions handle complex virtual agents. The differences in conversation flow are found in the role the action plays in the conversation:

  • For simple virtual agents that use a conversation action, the action interacts directly with the virtual agent. It passively monitors the conversation, but doesn't handle any part of it.
  • When you use an exchange action, you can customize the bot's behavior from turn to turn. This gives you great control over the conversation.

Conversation and exchange actions both support chat and voice channelsClosed A way for contacts and agents to interact, such as voice, email, chat, social media, and so on..

Prerequisites

To use Watson Assistant virtual agent botsClosed A software application that handles customer interactions in place of a live human agent. with CXone, you need:

  • IBM Cloud account.
  • Watson Assistant virtual agent bot configured with actions that fulfill your contacts' requests.