Conversational UI Is the Talk of Oracle OpenWorld 2019

Conversational UIs are a hot topic of discussion (no pun intended). Improvements in natural language processing, machine learning, and a wide variety of channel modalities (such as text-based services like SMS) have driven an explosion of interest in conversational “bots” not just for engaging customers, but also for answering internal employee inquiries.

At Oracle OpenWorld 2019, Oracle highlighted the power of its Digital Assistant product across a variety of enterprise use cases. While many bots are used to answer pre-sales questions on the web or engage with customers for service purposes, Oracle also demonstrated the power of its Digital Assistant in the aforementioned internal use cases. For example, Oracle went through a scenario where the Digital Assistant could answer an employee’s questions about their firm’s expense policy – all in a free-flowing, natural language format. Oracle claims that relative to consumer voice assistants such as Siri and Alexa, its Digital Assistant does a significantly better job of handling “business jargon.” A live demo of the Oracle Digital Assistant versus the consumer voice assistants nailed this point home.

We expect that as capabilities in natural language processing and machine learning mature, conversational UIs will rapidly hit their stride from a maturity perspective within a variety of verticals. Oracle’s investment in this space helps future-proof them for this anticipated upswing in bot-mania.

Above: Mobile Experience for Oracle Digital Assistant. Source: Oracle.

Our Take

• Oracle announced several improvements to its Digital Assistant at OpenWorld 2019 and highlighted use cases for not just marketing and customer service, but also internal HR.
• Conversational UIs (“bots”) have transformative potential in how employees and customers engage with your organization – this makes Oracle’s investment on this front a wise move.

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