Are you looking for a conversational AI platform but lost in the crowd? Can’t find the perfect conversational AI for your customer support teams? Your customers or for your sales teams?
The internet is full of “conversational AI” tools that can help you create great customer experiences with just a “little” investment. But today, we’re giving you a solid framework to judge the conversational AI platforms and find the best platform that fits your needs!
Conversational AI is a field of artificial intelligence that can communicate with people naturally, solve problems and also, become better at communication over time. Shortly, conversational artificial intelligence is using technology to facilitate smooth conversation between humans and computers to achieve a favorable outcome.
The mode of interaction can be text, video or voice. It may be present over web interfaces (websites), over phone (IVR calls), through social media (Facebook) or embedded into the product.
An example of conversational AI could be AI chatbots that you see on websites, or talk to over a customer support call. Another type of conversational AI could be your personal assistants like Siri, Alexa or more.
Before we dive into the details of conversational AI platform selection, let’s understand what conversational AI platform is.
Conversational AI platform provides a platform to implement human-like dialogue using virtual assistants, chatbots, voice assistants or virtual agents. Conversational AI platforms enable your organizations to build intelligent AI agents that can interact with your customers or employees effortlessly and help them complete their tasks. With conversational AI platforms, you can create:
And more.
When strategically deployed across the customer lifecycle, it unlocks transformative business outcomes – creating unparalleled experiences, optimizing operations, amplifying revenue streams, and unlocking a goldmine of actionable experience data.
While chatbots are a subset of conversational AI, there are significant differences in their capabilities, functionality, and applications. Here's a more detailed comparison between chatbots and conversational AI:
In case you're interested, we've covered the difference between generative ai and conversationai ai here.
Let’s look at how conversational AI works along with it’s components.
The image lists four basic components of the conversational AI platform or tools. Most leading conversational AI platforms employ an almost same stack synergistically orchestrating technologies:
Let's deconstruct this multi-layered architecture:
User Input Processing The first stage involves converting user inputs across channels like text, voice, or visuals into machine-readable data formats. Sophisticated ASR models translate spoken utterances into text, while optical character recognition extracts text from images and documents.
Natural Language Understanding Once inputs are transcribed, natural language processing engines decode their semantics – mapping words and phrases to semantic representations of intent, entities, and context. This grasp of user intent and associated attributes is critical for determining the appropriate conversational path.
Contextual Dialog Management Building on this layer of semantic understanding, a dialog manager maintains conversation state, guides users through relevant dialog flows, accesses knowledge sources, and determines appropriate system responses based on intent classification and predictive intelligence models. This contextual awareness ensures coherent conversations that deftly handle multi-turn queries, apply business logic, triage intentions to human assistance when needed.
Response Generation Finally, naturalistic language must be generated and delivered to the user through their preferred channel. Modern conversational AI platforms employ neural response generators to dynamically create human-like replies rather than relying on rigid pre-defined templates.
Of course, there are nuances in how different conversational AI vendors package and deploy the above AI stack. But this high-level overview demystifies the core workflow, laying the foundation for the conversational AI revolution impacting customer engagement across industries.
The conversational AI market is projected to reach $32 billion by 2025. With such explosive growth, conversational AI vendors are racing to deliver ever-more sophisticated solutions. But the overwhelming number of options for every single use case is a boon as well as curse for enterprises seeking to assess the most appropriate platform. So, we’ve developed a very strict and comprehensive questionnaire to find your next conversational AI software.
When you’re working with a conversational AI platform, you’re working very closely with their team. It is imperative that you confirm the credentials of the team and ensure you’re not buying into an AI wrapper but a platform that is built on strong foundations. Because most often than not, you’ll need the platform to help you drive your KPIs. Having a strong team of AI experts working along with your team can help you all the time.
Check for features like:
Natural Language Proficiency:
Contextual Understanding:
Generative AI Capabilities:
Industry & Domain Awareness:
Composable AI Proficiency: Leading platforms employ modular and composable AI architectures, allowing enterprises to orchestrate complementary models for tone analysis, and other intelligent services tailored to unique use cases.
Amid rising scrutiny around AI bias and leaks of PII, it is important to check platform’s security. Conversational AI platforms must offer complete transparency into their underlying AI models, datasets, and decision-making processes. Probe vendors on their ethical AI safeguards:
You need to make sure that the conversational AI platform you choose is easy to use for everyone in your team. Prioritize platforms empowering key stakeholders like:
The conversational AI platform needs to converse naturally with any stakeholders involved. Check for the following:
While pilot projects and proof-of-concepts are invaluable starting points, truly future-proof conversational AI platforms must scale seamlessly to support enterprise-wide deployments and evolving use cases:
Robust enterprise readiness extends beyond just technical checklists. Enterprises must validate real-world performance, time-to-value, and the vendor's ability to be a strategic business partner via:
Proven Expertise:
Performance Benchmarks:
Support Quality:
Alltius is a leading conversational AI platform that is built on decades of research in CMU and Wharton. Alltius transforms customer service by enabling organizations to create AI assistants for their customers and customer support team. Alltius’ self-serve AI assistants can solve customer queries within 10 seconds with almost 0 hallucinations.
Alltius is a no-code, completely customizable and can be deployed within a day. It reduces wait times, deflects tickets, solves customer queries, provides customer insights to product teams and improves cross-sell & upsell revenues from customer support channels.
Versatility
Alltius’ AI offers a lot of versatility in options to create AI assistants. Alltius’ no-code platform offers lego like structure where you can pick and choose any of these options to create your AI assistants:
Time to Value
Alltius delivers ROI within weeks with ability to
And more.
Conversation Accuracy
Alltius has inbuilt mechanisms to reduce hallucinations and improve the intent mapping. Alltius’ AI assistants are hallucination free with our advanced segmentation and knowledge technologies. This makes it easy to deploy it on customer facing channels.
Alltius’ AI assistants currently demonstrate 95% precision out-of-the-box and can be pushed up to 99.99% accuracy and precision with additional customization by our team.
Apart from this, Alltius is trained to understand customer intent with highest accuracy, which it then uses to draft responses in order to placate customers according to the mode. The Alltius’ AI assistants require no “prompt engineering” to get correct response, which makes it easy to use.
Customization
Alltius is a completely customizable platform to suit your needs. Alltius is currently used by customers for sales, customer support and customer self support use cases in a variety of industries like insurance, banking, retail, education, consulting and more. Alltius is completely customizable according to your use case.
Conversation Analytics
Alltius doesn't just reply, but is on top of all the conversations happening via the AI assistant platforms. Alltius’ AI assistants learn from conversations, it transforms conversations into knowledge articles for further use and it also shares insights about customer sentiments & trends to the product team to further improve the product.
Such analytics lead to direct impact on customer satisfaction, revenue, loyalty and ultimately, customer experience. Learn more about Alltius:
Dialog Flow is a conversational AI platform by Google that allows building voice and text-based conversational interfaces powered by machine learning and natural language processing. Google Dialogflow, formerly Api.ai, represents a cutting-edge chatbot-building tool that has redefined the landscape of human-computer interaction. Tailored to offer users novel and engaging methods of interacting with digital products, Dialogflow stands as a powerhouse in constructing voice and text-based conversational interfaces driven by the prowess of artificial intelligence.
Acquired by Google in 2019, Dialogflow brings the technological might of one of the world's tech giants to the forefront of chatbot development. With a focus on user experience and the seamless integration of AI, Dialogflow is at the forefront of innovation, enabling developers to craft dynamic, responsive, and intuitive conversational interfaces for a diverse range of applications and industries. Dialogflow's natural language processing capabilities enable businesses to create conversational interfaces that can understand and respond to user inputs in a highly accurate and context-aware manner.
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Pricing: Free tier with limited usage, paid pricing based on usage starting at $0.002 per request
IBM Watson Assistant leverages conversational AI and natural language processing to automate conversations across any application, device or channel. IBM Watson Assistant is a leading conversational AI software that empowers businesses to create sophisticated, AI interfaces for a wide range of applications and industries. With its robust natural language processing capabilities, Watson Assistant helps developers to craft personalized, engaging, and intuitive conversational experiences. Serving enterprises worldwide, Watson Assistant is a top choice for those seeking to revolutionize customer interactions and enhance user engagement.
Watson Assistant's cutting-edge technology allows for seamless integration with various channels and devices, enabling businesses to reach their customers wherever they are. Its advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities enable continuous improvement and refinement of conversational interfaces, ensuring that they remain effective and engaging over time. With Watson Assistant, businesses can create conversational interfaces that not only enhance customer experiences but also drive revenue growth and improve operational efficiency.
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Pricing: Lite plan free, plus pay-as-you-go based on usage starting at $0.0025 per message
Amazon Lex is a fully managed AI service that allows building conversational interfaces into any application using voice and text. Amazon Lex is a cutting-edge conversational AI tool that uses the power of machine learning to create lifelike, voice and text-based interfaces. Designed to simplify the development process, Amazon Lex is catered to developers to build sophisticated chatbots that can be seamlessly integrated into various applications and devices. With its scalability and flexibility, Lex serves businesses of all sizes, from startups to enterprises, and is a top choice for those seeking to elevate customer experiences.
Lex's deep learning capabilities enable it to understand and respond to user inputs in a highly accurate and context-aware manner. Its integration with Amazon's vast ecosystem of services, including AWS Lambda and Amazon Polly, enables developers to create conversational interfaces that are highly engaging and interactive. With Lex, businesses can create AI chatbots that can handle complex conversations, understand nuances of language, and provide personalized responses to user queries.
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Pricing: Pay-per-use model, voice $0.00075 per speech request, text $0.00004 per request
Microsoft Bot Framework provides a conversational AI platform to build and deploy conversational AI bots across channels like Teams, Slack, Alexa etc. Microsoft Bot Framework is a comprehensive conversational AI tool that empowers developers to create intelligent, AI-driven interfaces for a wide range of applications and channels. With its extensive set of tools and services, the Bot Framework enables businesses to craft personalized, engaging, and adaptive conversational experiences. Serving developers and enterprises worldwide, the Bot Framework is a top choice for those seeking to harness the power of AI to transform customer interactions.
The Bot Framework's open and extensible architecture enables developers to integrate their conversational interfaces with various Microsoft services, including Azure Cognitive Services and Microsoft Teams. Its advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities enable continuous improvement and refinement of conversational interfaces, ensuring that they remain effective and engaging over time. With the Bot Framework, businesses can create conversational interfaces that not only enhance customer experiences but also drive revenue growth and improve operational efficiency.
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Pricing: Paid tier starts at $0.60 per 1,000 messages + data transfer and compute costs
Pandorabots is a conversational AI tool that enables developers to create and deploy sophisticated chatbots across various channels and applications. With its robust natural language processing capabilities and user-friendly interface, Pandorabots serves businesses and developers seeking to create engaging, interactive, and personalized conversational experiences.
Pandorabots' AI-powered chatbots can understand and respond to user inputs in a highly accurate and context-aware manner. Its extensive library of pre-built intents and entities enables developers to quickly and easily create conversational interfaces that can handle complex conversations. With Pandorabots, businesses can create chatbots that can be integrated with various channels, including messaging platforms, voice assistants, and websites, enabling them to reach their customers wherever they are.
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Pricing: Free starter tier, paid business tier at $0.003 per interaction, enterprise pricing available
Kore.ai is a conversational AI platform providing virtual assistants for enterprise employee & customer experience.
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Pricing: Not publicly disclosed, quote-based enterprise pricing
Rulai is a leading conversational AI software that enables businesses to create sophisticated, AI-driven interfaces for customer service and engagement. With its robust natural language processing capabilities and user-friendly interface, Rulai serves businesses seeking to create personalized, interactive, and adaptive conversational experiences. From startups to enterprises, Rulai is a top choice for those seeking to elevate customer interactions and enhance user engagement.
Rulai's conversational AI chatbots can understand and respond to user inputs in a highly accurate and context-aware manner. Its advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities enable continuous improvement and refinement of conversational interfaces, ensuring that they remain effective and engaging over time. With Rulai, businesses can create conversational interfaces that not only enhance customer experiences but also drive revenue growth and improve operational efficiency.
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Pricing: Not publicly disclosed, enterprise pricing model
SAP provides conversational AI services enabling intelligent chatbots and voice assistants for business applications. SAP Conversational AI is a comprehensive conversational AI platform that empowers businesses to create intelligent, AI-driven interfaces for a wide range of applications and industries. With its robust natural language processing capabilities and extensive set of tools, SAP Conversational AI enables developers to craft personalized, engaging, and adaptive conversational experiences. Serving enterprises worldwide, SAP Conversational AI is a top choice for those seeking to revolutionize customer interactions and enhance user engagement.
SAP Conversational AI's integration with SAP's vast ecosystem of services, including SAP CRM and SAP ERP, enables developers to create conversational interfaces that are highly engaging and interactive.
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Pricing: Based on SAP pricing policies & existing product usage
Haptik is a conversational AI platform focused on building virtual assistants and chatbots for customer service.It offers user-friendly visual tools for designing chatbot conversations and pre-built templates for common industry use cases. Haptik combines natural language processing and intent recognition capabilities to facilitate intelligent self-service experiences. Haptik serves businesses seeking to create personalized, interactive, and adaptive conversational experiences. From startups to enterprises, Haptik is a top choice for those seeking to elevate customer interactions and enhance user engagement.
Haptik's AI chatbots can understand and respond to user inputs in a highly accurate and context-aware manner. Its extensive library of pre-built intents and entities enables developers to quickly and easily create conversational interfaces that can handle complex conversations. With Haptik, businesses can create chatbots that can be integrated with various channels, including messaging platforms, voice assistants, and websites, enabling them to reach their customers wherever they are.
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Pricing: $200/month basic plan, enterprise pricing available on request
Chat-GPT wasn’t made to improve customer experiences, Alltius is.
Alltius is a platform focused on one goal : Improve customer experience across all touchpoints.
Alltius is an all-in-one AI platform for enterprises looking to convert their websites into lead generation machines, supercharge their sales process, deflect incoming tickets with self-serve AI options for customers & reduce customer wait times with AI assistants for agents
Alltius’ AI assistant is trained on your company documents like FAQs, product documentation, tutorial videos, previous customer tickets, customer information and more. It has capabilities to perform multiple tasks like answering questions, debugging, drafting responses, performing actions like calculating account balance or taking action on behalf of customers, raising tickets, adding information into CRM or more. It is completely customizable as per your needs.
Think of it as an additional extremely trained employee who can be trained to do anything you’d want. Here are some of the ways Alltius is used by our clients.
A company's website has lots of visits but almost 0 conversions.
Implement Alltius' website assist to handle website conversations. These AI assistants will solve website visiotr's doubts, help them discover exact product they need and also help in setting up meetings. As a result, lead generation and coversion rates increase by 50%, enabling customers to find quick and effortless solutions.
The sales team has difficult time converting their prospects to deals. There are a lot of leads but extremely low conversion rates.
Leverage Alltius's Sales rep assist to create AI assistants to effciently lead qualification, creating personalized pitches at scale and handling sales objections without depending on your product team with AI sales assistants.The result is 3X more deals within 2 months of going live.
An organization faces high agent expenses and wants to optimize AI accuracy and resolution rates.
Use Alltius's support agent assist to quickly identify customer intent, understand customer query and create pre-drafted answers for your agents within seonds. This improves agent productivity, reduces agent training expenses while maintaining high-quality customer service. The result is 50% reduction in support costs and slashing FTR to 10 seconds from days or hours.
A company faces a huge surge in tickets across all channels leading to high customer wait times and low customer satisfaction.
Implement Alltius's Self Serve AI assist to provide instant responses to all the customers regardless of channel, time zone or language. The platform can understand customer query, identify root cause and communicate with your customers in conversational manner to solve their queries within seconds. This solution reduces response times to seconds and improves customer satisfaction scores by 50%, while significantly cutting operational costs.
Conversational AI assistant for your customers
Self-Serve AI is customer facing AI assistant that can be deployed on a website, in the product, Slack, zendesk, or any other customer facing channel. It can understand customer intent, instantly acknowledge customer query, identify customer needs and solve customer query within seconds. This reduces customer wait times, increases ticket deflection and improves customer satisfaction.
Conversational AI assistant for your support agents
Support Assist AI is a support agent’s AI assistant that curates information from multiple sources so the agent spends more time in building relationships with customers. Support AI helps your customer support agent:
With features like customizable CUIs, version control, and seamless ecosystem integration, Alltius enables businesses to fine-tune AI applications for maximum efficiency and innovation.
It has been used by major brands to uphaul their customer service & reduce their customer support costs by $50k per month. In case you’re interested in implementing conversational AI for customer support, experience Alltius in one of the 4 ways:
In conclusion, selecting the right conversational AI platform is pivotal for organizations looking to enhance customer experiences, streamline operations, and drive revenue growth. The framework provided offers a comprehensive approach to evaluate and compare different platforms based on key parameters such as AI capabilities, security, usability, conversational responses, scalability, real-world performance, and more. Among the top 10 conversational AI platforms in 2024, each offers unique strengths and weaknesses, catering to various business needs and use cases. Platforms like Alltius stand out for their versatility, rapid time-to-value, high conversation accuracy, customization options, and robust conversation analytics.
However, it's essential for organizations to carefully assess their specific requirements, industry nuances, and desired outcomes before making a decision. Whether it's prioritizing ease of use for non-technical stakeholders, ensuring compliance with security regulations, or seeking scalability for enterprise-wide deployments, aligning platform capabilities with business objectives is paramount.
Ultimately, successful adoption and deployment of conversational AI platforms rely not only on technical functionalities but also on vendor support, real-world performance benchmarks, and strategic partnerships. By leveraging the outlined framework and thoroughly evaluating each platform against their unique business needs, organizations can make informed decisions to unlock the full potential of conversational AI technology and drive transformative business outcomes.
Read more:
If you’re interested, feel free to dive deeper into conversational AI with following resources: