Google Dialogflow-Powered Virtual Agents are Now Only a Phone Call Away
Google is partnering with digital voice networking tech developer AudioCodes to connect virtual agents built with Dialogflow to telephone numbers. The Israeli startup’s tech will bring voice assistants built on Google’s platform to call centers and other companies that are fielding many phone calls at once.
Phone for AudioCodes
Dialogflow is an easy way to build responsive voice and chatbots and is used with mobile apps, websites, and Google Assistant Actions. The platform is very widely used, especially as virtual agents become a more popular way for companies to interact with customers. With the new collaboration, Dialogflow-based agents are now accessible by telephone. AudioCodes uses its Voice.AI Gateway to enable phone access to Dialogflow agents. There’s a straightforward portal for customers to deploy the voice assistant, connecting it to a phone number. The system only works with telephone numbers in the United States and the United Kingdom at the moment, but AudioCodes plans on adding new countries to the list soon.
“We are pleased to have the AudioCodes solution integrated with Dialogflow,” Dialogflow lead product manager Shantanu Misra said in a statement. “By seamlessly adding telephony interfaces to virtual agents developed on Dialogflow, AudioCodes One-Click Telephony Gateway solution extends the reach and value of Dialogflow virtual agents, enabling companies to cut long waiting times in busy support centers and increase productivity of live agents.”
Virtual Agency
Virtual customer service agents have been growing in prominence for a while. For instance, Nuance created and released a set of its conversational artificial intelligence software to enable companies to design and build their own virtual assistants called the Nuance Mix. The current COVID-19 pandemic has made them even more crucial for some industries. Inference Solutions designed a system for its clients to update their virtual agents with coronavirus-related answers as to the effects on client business, much as Satisfi Labs created a pandemic-specific AI platform to answer the questions asked of its event and venue clients. The popularity of Dialogflow, meanwhile, has led to new applications during the pandemic, such as Curbie, the curbside pickup bot built by RAIN. AudioCodes integrating the platform into its telephony system will likely encourage more companies to set up their own AI-powered call centers.
“The One-Click Telephony Gateway solution is a further example of AudioCodes’ continuous drive towards voice innovation,” Audiocodes vice president of product Yehuda Herscovici said in a statement. “Building on our market-leading SBCs and our innovative Voice.AI gateway platform, the new solution promises to offer bot developers and contact center operators a new dimension in the automation of customer interactions.”
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