Driven by the wave of Artificial Intelligence, conversational agents or chatbots are beginning to take over the world of e-shopping. Their role is to provide both answers to questions that buyers may ask themselves when carrying out their missions and assistance in the use of tools.
On the ground of artificial intelligence (AI), while waiting for the large-scale launch of “augmented” business functionalities, it is on a very specific niche that the achievements of e-purchasing publishers are currently focused: chatbots. It must be said that the interest of companies for these "conversational robots", which answer questions through mechanisms of understanding of the language, was reinforced last year mainly because of their integration into smartphone applications. Undoubtedly, also, because Gafa (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple), the four American digital giants, quickly positioned themselves in this field, with their own solution: Now for Google, Echo and Alexa for Amazon, M for Facebook, Siri for Apple. Not to mention Microsoft with Cortana.
While the concept of the conversational agent dates back several years, the innovation lies in the integration of technologies such as natural language processing and machine learning. Thanks to them, these interfaces de dialogue improve over time based on questions, providing real assistance to users. The dynamic in this area is such that the research firm Gartner predicts that “by 2019, 40% of companies will actively use chatbots to facilitate business processes by providing natural language interactions.” The growing interest of software publishers is indeed in line with this forecast.
In the general management software market, several players have already integrated this type of tool or are preparing to do so, such as the Dutch Unit4 and its agent Wanda launched in 2016. “For travel management, our virtual assistant can identify the habits of the collaborator who formulates his request in natural language and make suggestions, then automatically manage the approval process, or even make the reservation", explained Mourad Sadok, technical consultant at the publisher, during a recent B2B Computer Press Club conference on Artificial Intelligence.
In the field of e-purchasing, SynerTrade serait l’un des plus en avance, au moins en termes de communication. « Il s’agit d’apporter la réponse la plus juste possible à des questions fréquemment posées », expliquait Sébastien Dumas, son VP Marketing & Business Development, lors des dernières Universités des achats du Conseil national des achats (CNA), mi-2017. Son chatbot, qui s’appuie sur Siri et des algorithmiques développés en interne, serait capable d’apporter des réponses aux questions que peuvent se poser les acheteurs lors de leurs tâches quotidiennes, et offrirait aussi une assistance dans l’utilisation de la suite Accelerate.
The Tradeshift platform has also been equipped with a virtual assistant capable of answering questions from users, to speed up operations. Called Ada, it can help find an order placed, find out if a budget has been consumed, find out the status of an invoice, etc. Already available since the end of 2016 for some customers, on the payment part, it is offered in the form of an API to the publisher's partners who can integrate it into their Apps. An “AI as a service” offer, in a way.
Of course, chatbots still often rely on written exchanges. But a transition to voice will slowly take place, and publishers who are preparing for it today have a head start. As part of this development, the input forms may be replaced by an interface capable of recognizing speech, and the virtual assistant will be able to take control of the workflow system to formulate a request, validate an operation, reconcile documents, etc By supplementing these agents with technologies intelligentes allowing the systems to act alone and to supplement the teams in certain tasks, AI will inevitably revolutionize the world of e-purchasing.