How conversational AI is enabling the experience economy

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Abstract: The use of conversational AI (CAI), already experiencing strong growth, has accelerated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Natural or human language interfaces enable engaging, satisfying and efficient experiences across platforms and sectors. This paper briefly introduces CAI, provides a snapshot of where the technology is, with examples of recent use cases. It then explores the growing area of ethical considerations, best practice and legislation for CAIs, and maps human rights concerns to the technological landscape. It concludes with pointers towards useful, ethically sound applications where users can collaborate easily and flexibly with CAIs.

Keywords: conversational AI; user experience; ethics; responsible AI; digital literacy; platform architecture

Laetitia Cailleteau is a managing director at Accenture and leads the conversational AI domain globally, driving innovation, sales and delivery across the globe for multiple industries and clients for more than 22 years. She has authored several academic publications and holds patents in the conversational AI domain. Laetitia founded Accenture’s Innovation Studio in London, a space for co-creation with clients to realise the potential of artificial intelligence, augmented reality, Internet of Things, using user-centred approaches. She is a reserve member of the Artificial Intelligence High Level Group at the European Commission and also a board member of OASIS Open Foundation in Europe.
 

Emer Gilmartin is an engineer and computational linguist. She researches human–machine interaction at the ADAPT Centre, Trinity College Dublin, with particular emphasis on making conversational AI more natural and efficient. She has published widely in the field. She also builds spoken dialogue systems for education, health and commercial purposes, and consults to industry on all aspects of natural language interfaces.
 

Fuad Hendricks is part of Accenture’s Data&AI Europe group, where he leads the delivery of cross-industry investments focused on differentiated transformation strategies, offerings and services to rapidly deliver value to clients where data is at its core.