More Brains are Better Than One: Nuance’s New Cognitive Arbitrator Connects Virtual Assistants in the Smart Home, Car, and ...
January 03 2018 - 8:00AM
Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) today introduced its
cognitive arbitrator, a new artificial intelligence (AI)-powered
capability that solves for one of the biggest consumer challenges
in today’s connected world: the need to learn and remember the
specific capabilities and vocabularies of multiple assistants
spread across different services and devices. Nuance’s cognitive
arbitrator solves this challenge by seamlessly connecting and
integrating disparate virtual assistants, third-party services, and
content via a single interface that spans the automotive, smart
home, and Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem to complete complex
tasks and enhance the user experience.
The cognitive arbitrator is central to Nuance’s vision of a
world in which multiple virtual assistants work together to benefit
end users through intelligent and effective conversational AI. The
cognitive arbitrator creates a singular, intelligent hub that
listens, understands and routes a user’s request to the specialized
assistant or content service best suited to accomplish the task.
For example, a driver can talk to the highly specialized in-car
assistant to request driving directions and streaming music, and
also make requests that will be routed to other third-party
assistants that handle tasks such as shopping, food ordering,
personal banking, and more.
“By 2020, there will be 26 billion intelligent, capable,
connected devices armed with conversational virtual assistants that
manage nearly every possible consumer experience. These assistants
all have strengths and specialties, but today, they rarely
communicate with each other or work together across devices – and
it’s the consumer who loses out. Plus, brands are forced to make
rigid choices about whether to build their own highly specialized
assistants or leverage open, general-purpose assistants,” said
Kenneth Harper, vice president, emerging solutions, Nuance. “The
introduction of Nuance’s cognitive arbitrator functionality solves
this challenge, maximizing our customers’ ability to provide their
own unique and differentiated experiences to end users, while also
offering interoperability to the world of other assistants that
deliver useful services. It’s a win-win for everyone in the
ecosystem, especially the humans that buy and use our customers’
products and services.”
The cognitive arbitrator also allows Nuance’s specialized
virtual assistants to tap directly into other popular
consumer-facing virtual assistants. For instance, Nuance is already
integrating its highly specialized Nina customer engagement
assistant into Amazon® Alexa™, and today announced Nina for Google
Home. Nuance customers, including banks, airlines, telco service
providers and retailers, who deploy Nina with cognitive arbitrator
capabilities can now open an entirely new way to deliver superior
service in the smart home – through Amazon Alexa or Google Home –
while retaining ownership of their individual brand experience and
maintaining full control over consumer data in a cost-effective
manner.
Key features of the cognitive arbitrator include:
- Ability to connect separate, Nuance-powered assistants, as well
as mainstream assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Home, to
seamlessly complete requests and accomplish tasks
- Both explicit and implicit handling of user requests; for
example, a user can say, “Ask my bank what my balance is,” or “How
much do I have in my checking account?” and receive the same
result, without having to reference a specific assistant or service
by name
- Ability to automatically learn preferences over time, so the
arbitrator knows which assistant or content service the user
prefers for specific tasks
- Contextual understanding of all the tasks completed from within
any assistant, allowing users to modify previous tasks, such as
“Cancel my last order”
- Integration with multiple services and agents simultaneously to
complete a series of complex tasks, such as “Order my usual Chinese
takeout after my last meeting today”
“The need to ‘have your agent call my agent’ is a known problem
among brands, bot developers and end-users in the Intelligent
Assistance Landscape,” explained Dan Miller, Lead Analyst at Opus
Research. “Nuance’s cognitive arbitrator is a timely solution that
is bound to accelerate each virtual agent’s ability to support
conversational search, support and commerce.”
The cognitive arbitrator is now available as part of the Nuance
Virtual Assistant Platform that powers its Dragon Drive and smart
home solutions as well as Nina, the virtual assistant for customer
engagement, and the Dragon Medical Virtual Assistant. Dragon Drive
powers more than 200 million cars on the road today across more
than 40 languages, creating conversational human machine interfaces
for Audi, BMW, Daimler, Fiat, Ford, GM, Hyundai, SAIC, Toyota and
more. In addition, Nuance is a recognized leader in providing
automated and intelligent AI-powered solutions to large enterprises
globally with over 6,500 enterprises using Nuance’s self-service
technologies, processing an estimated 16 billion transactions each
year. The cognitive arbitrator will be demonstrated at the 2018
Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas from January 9-12,
2018. For more information, visit
www.nuance.com/mobile/cognitive-arbitration.
About Nuance Communications, Inc.
Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:NUAN) is a leading provider
of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers around
the world. Its technologies, applications and services make
the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people
interact with devices and systems. Every day, millions of users and
thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven
applications. For more information, please visit
www.nuance.com.
Trademark reference: Nuance and the Nuance logo are registered
trademarks or trademarks of Nuance Communications, Inc. or its
affiliates in the United States and/or other countries. All other
trademarks referenced herein are the property of their respective
owners.
Contact Information
For Press
Kate Hickman Nuance Communications, Inc. Tel:
781-565-4627 Email: kathryn.hickman@nuance.com
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