Natural language processing (NLP) is a branch of artificial intelligence that helps computers understand,

interpret, and manipulate human language. NLP draws from many disciplines, including computer
science and computational linguistics, in its pursuit to fill the gap between human communication and
computer understanding.

NLP is important because it helps resolve ambiguity in language and adds useful numeric structure to
the data for many downstream applications, such as speech recognition or text analytics.

In general terms, NLP tasks break down language into shorter, elemental pieces, try to understand
relationships between the pieces and explore how the pieces work together to create meaning.

These underlying tasks are often used in higher-level NLP capabilities, such as:

Content categorization. A linguistic-based document summary, including search and indexing, content
alerts and duplication detection.

Topic discovery and modeling. Accurately capture the meaning and themes in text collections, and
apply advanced analytics to text, like optimization and forecasting.

Contextual extraction. Automatically pull structured information from text-based sources.

Sentiment analysis. Identifying the mood or subjective opinions within large amounts of text, including
average sentiment and opinion mining.

Speech-to-text and text-to-speech conversion. Transforming voice commands into written text, and
vice versa.

Document summarization. Automatically generating synopses of large bodies of text.

Machine translation. Automatic translation of text or speech from one language to another.

NLP for agent support

Did you know that the average customer support agent can only handle 21 support tickets per day? It’s
easy to see how agents struggle to keep on top of customer inquiries!

(You can calculate your average interactions/ticket to see how much time these interactions costs.)

An increasing number of agents are turning to machine learning software to cope with that high
demand. Salesforce discovered 69% of high-performing service agents are actively looking for situations
to use artificial intelligence (AI).
Conversational AI can handle queries that don’t need much attention. This leaves agents with more time
to handle complex queries that need a human touch.

Your conversational AI could handle questions like:

“Where is the HDMI input on my Samsung TV?”

“What is the status of my order?”

“How do I connect my Google Analytics account?”

https://clutch.co/developers/artificial-intelligence/natural-language-processing

Digital Genius is another relatively new company in the AI for customer service market. In particular, the
brand offers software intended to help businesses automate repetitive customer support inquiries.
Digital Genius can also assist human agents with answering customer questions through natural
language processing (NLP). Furthermore, Digital Genius offers access to chatbot functionalities that gives
every human agent their own digital assistant. Digital Genius automatically pulls possible responses to
customer questions based on historical records. Then, it sends useful suggestions to agents in real time.
The chatbots can also take over repetitive work for their human counterparts when necessary. The
service works seamlessly with Salesforce, Zendesk, and other leading CRM solutions.

Persado

Persado concentrates on using the power of words and the right marketing language to connect with
customers. The Persado product offers natural language generation from an AI-enhanced message
machine that breaks marketing creative down into specific elements. The machine then applies leading
algorithms to your content to make sure that you’re driving the right message online through your
brand voice. Persado’s AI constantly learns and improves, getting insights from your business about how
your marketing resonates with different audiences. This unique approach to customer service AI will
help companies to enhance not just their marketing collateral, but their ability to create chatbots, FAQs,
and agent scripts for customer contact centres too.

Observe.AI

Observe.AI is an intelligence-focused company that’s committed to making every agent in the call centre
more informed and efficient. With intelligence voice AI in the form of Agent Assist, agents in the contact
centre can work more efficiently. The intelligent platform provides agents with real-time feedback on
customer sentiment and offers guidance into the next best action steps delivered during each customer
call. Observe.AI can also listen to the call stream as it happens in real time through technology such as
NLP and deep learning to understand the context of the discussion. In turn, it can offer agents
suggestions in real time to improve the customer experience.

erint Next IT

Verint Next IT offers conversational AI software to companies across the globe. This software helps
businesses of all sizes deliver better customer service and reduce costs with NLP-based chatbots. The
machine learning technologies available from Next IT help the brand create custom-made chatbots for
the businesses that they work with. Rather than getting a one-size-fits-all chatbot solution to upgrade
your customer experience framework, you get a chatbot that’s trained according to your individual
needs. The AI then integrates readily into your business website and back-end by the time that it’s
handed over to your IT experts.

Amazon Web Services

Amazon isn’t just a substantial online merchant anymore; the company is also one of the world’s top
providers of intelligent solutions. In particular, Amazon Web Services has spent the last couple of years
investing heavily into machine learning (ML) and AI. Today, the AI and ML technology of Amazon’s
systems offer access to everything that today’s companies need to make their customer service smarter.
Amazon Web Services offers enterprise services that range from Amazon Lex, with deep learning and
NLP functionalities, to Amazon Polly. Amazon Polly turns text into lifelike speech so companies can
create intelligent virtual assistants. There’s also Amazon machine learning available for in-depth
business insights too.

IBM Watson

IBM is the company behind the Watson assistant – an IVR system and NLP technology that changes the
way modern companies interact with their customers. According to IBM, the Watson Assistant could
reduce the need for today’s consumers to speak with human agents when they need to solve problems
quickly. IBM Watson is one of the most advanced customer service solutions in the AI environment,
offering both text-to-speech and speech-to-text interactions. Additionally, the Voice Gateway provided
by IBM allows for easy access to the latest intelligent solutions in the IBM marketplace.