Top 10 Conversational AI Platforms 2023 – eWeek
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By leveraging natural language processing and generative AI, conversational AI platforms enable businesses to build intelligent AI chatbots and virtual assistants that can understand and respond to user queries seamlessly.
We highlight the top Conversational AI platforms empowering enterprises to deliver personalized, efficient, and engaging customer experiences.
Here are our picks for the best conversational AI platforms:
Here is a head-to-head comparison summary of the best conversational AI platforms.
$0.00075 per text request
Built on deep learning, machine learning, and natural language processing (NLP) models, the IBM Watson Assistant conversational AI platform enables your teams to build AI-powered voice agents and chatbots that deliver automated self-service support across all channels and touchpoints. It can search and find answers to customer inquiries in existing documents, websites, and knowledge bases in order to complete the user’s intended action.
The platform allows you to build an AI chatbot that can be trained to understand user requests and adapted to your business scenarios – it also can recognize plain-language responses from your customers, like synonyms, dates, times, and numbers. It integrates with various third-party services, including WhatsApp, Slack, Facebook Messenger, Kustomer, Zendesk and more.
IBM Watson is available for free with basic features and paid versions with advanced features.
Also see: Best Artificial Intelligence Software 2023
Kore.ai Experience Optimization (XO) Platform is designed to help businesses build, train, and deploy intelligent chatbots and virtual assistants that can understand and respond to customer queries in a natural, conversational manner.
Aside from the XO platform, the company also offers various solutions such as SmartAssist, an AI-native CCaaS solution; AgentAssist, which are virtual assistants supporting agents in real time; and BankAssist, which is an AI-native, omnichannel, conversational banking assistant pre-trained on 400+ retail banking use cases.
Korea.ai offers optional enhanced support at an additional cost – $2,000 per month for the standard plan and a custom quote for the enterprise plan.
Powered by neural networks, speech synthesis, and deep learning, Avaamo is a conversational artificial intelligence platform that provides businesses with intelligent virtual assistants and chatbots. Avaamo offers fabricated skillsets to help enterprises automate complex business use cases through multi-turn conversations.
Avaamo offers a skills builder that includes a flow designer for designing conversation, dynamic dialog, conversational IVR, and other tools that enable you to automate complex enterprise use cases.
Avaamo doesn’t advertise pricing on its website; the company encourages users to request a demo to learn about the platform and get custom quotes based on their needs.
Amazon Lex is a chatbot-building technology by AWS, so it benefits from the cloud giant’s extensive platform. It’s a service that can help you build conversational interfaces using voice and text. Amazon Lex uses Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) to convert spoken language into text and Text-to-Speech (TTS) to convert text into spoken language. The platform has various components that work together to enable users to build intelligent conversational AI solutions for their businesses. They include:
Amazon Lex only charges you for what you use. You can also try the tool for free. You can process up to 10,000 text requests and 5,000 speech requests or speech intervals per month at no cost for the first year of trying the tool.
Request and response interaction pricing
Streaming conversation pricing
Automated chatbot designer pricing
You can use the AWS pricing calculator to calculate your monthly expense or contact an AWS specialist for pricing assistance to get an estimate.
Also see: Top Generative AI Apps and Tools
With the Oracle Conversational AI platform, you can build chatbots that can engage in natural language conversations, understand user intents, and provide relevant responses and actions. The platform lets you connect with a chatbot through channels like Microsoft Teams or Facebook on your website or embedded inside your mobile app.
Oracle Digital Assistant platform pricing is available per request and as a subscription for SaaS customers by employee, named users, or sessions.
Supporting both code-first and no-code approaches, Microsoft Bot Framework provides a platform for creating conversational agents capable of interacting with users via channels such as online sites, Slack, and Facebook. The framework comprises various components:
Also see: Generative AI Companies: Top 12 Leaders 
Enhanced with generative AI, Cognigy’s low code Conversational AI platform enables enterprises to automate contact centers for customer and employee communications. The platform offers customer service solutions like Conversational IVR, Smart Self-Service, and Agent + Assist. With Cognigy, users can design conversational flows, integrate with backend systems, and customize the behavior of their chatbots or virtual assistants to suit their specific business needs.
The platform doesn’t advertise its pricing on its website. To get quotes, businesses are required to contact the company for a demo to discuss their needs. Publicly available information revealed the platform costs as follows.
Our analysis found that Yellow.ai is a battle-tested conversational AI platform used by over 1,000 enterprises across 70 countries. Yellow.ai dynamic automation platform is designed to automate customer and employee interaction and conversations across text, email, and voice. The platform is fluent in over 135 languages and supports over 35 channels.
Yellow.ai AI chatbot pricing are as follows:
Publicly available information on the AWS marketplace reveals that the Yellow.ai Basic Plan, which includes a basic chatbot with one use case and tiered conversation limits, costs $10,000 for 12 months, while the Standard Plan, which includes a Standard chatbot with four use cases and tiered conversation limits, costs $25,000 for 12 months.
Featuring live chat, video and voice calling, AI chatbots, co-browsing and centralized interaction management, Acquire conversational AI platform empowers users to help customers resolve complex issues in real time. The platform aims to improve customer satisfaction, increase conversions, and enhance customer support efficiency.
Clinc’s AI platform is designed to provide personalized and natural language-based experiences for applications like virtual assistants, chatbots, and voice-controlled devices. The company has been particularly involved in developing AI systems for the financial and banking sectors, where their technology is used to create virtual banking assistants that allow customers to check balances, report lost or stolen cards, transfer funds, and gain deep insights into their spending habits.
Pricing is available upon request.
The computer’s ability to understand human spoken or written language is known as natural language processing. NLP combines computational linguistics, machine learning, and deep learning models to process human language. This feature enables the conversational AI system to comprehend and interpret the nuances of human language, including context, intent, entities, and sentiment.
The best conversational AI platform allows you to engage with your customers across multiple channels and touchpoints such as websites, mobile apps, messaging platforms (like Facebook Messenger, Instagram or WhatsApp), voice assistants (such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant), and more. The tools we analyzed in this guide allow you to engage with your customers across various channels.
The best conversational AI tools are trained to analyze digital text to deduce the emotional tone of the message – which could be positive, negative, or neutral. This capability allows chatbots to respond to customers in a more personalized way or empathetic manner.
Integration capability is an important feature of any modern-day digital solution, especially for conversational AI platforms. Seamless integration with third-party services like CRM systems, messaging platforms, payment gateways, or ticketing systems allows businesses to provide personalized experiences.
Conversational AI platforms often provide analytics and insights into user interactions. This data can help businesses understand user behavior, identify common queries, and improve the effectiveness of the AI system.
While there are hundreds of conversational AI platforms marketed as the best system, each tool has its strengths and areas of weaknesses. What seems to be a strength for company A may be a weakness for company B and vice versa. Choosing the right conversational AI software for your business can significantly impact customer interactions, operational efficiency, and overall success. So, how do you select the best conversational AI platform for your business?
Keep in mind that the best conversational AI software for your business will depend on your unique needs, goals, and the preferences of your customers.
The best conversational AI platform is easy to use, offers features that meet the intended users’ needs, balances quality service and affordability, and allows businesses to integrate with tools and services they already use.
We evaluated each platform’s core offerings and their ability to serve the needs of businesses in various industries. Our analysis considered features like NLU, multi-channel support, flexible deployment, multi-lingual and other essential features.
We researched each conversational AI platform pricing strategy and model. We also checked for pricing transparency and the availability of free demos and trials to allow potential buyers to test out the platform before making a purchase decision.
We checked whether the conversational AI platform integrates with third party services such as CRM, ITSM, and various communication channels such as websites, messaging apps, voice assistants, and social media platforms.
We reviewed each platform’s usability to determine if it’s beginner-friendly. A user-friendly dashboard makes it easier for non-technical team members to manage the AI. So we checked if the platform has an intuitive interface for setting up and managing conversational flows.
To score each conversational AI platform for this category, we analyzed user feedback on review sites and considered the types of support offered by each company.
Consider the following features when shopping for a conversational AI platform:
Conversational AI platforms are software solutions that leverage the innovations of AI, deep learning, and NLP technologies to enable automated, human-like interactions between computers and users through natural language.
These platforms facilitate seamless communication across various channels, such as chatbots, voice assistants, messaging apps, websites, and more. They are designed to understand user inputs, interpret their intentions, and provide relevant and contextual responses.
The potential applications of conversational AI are vast. Any industry that involves customer interactions, information dissemination, and process automation can benefit from leveraging conversational AI platforms.
As businesses seek to enhance their customer interactions and improve overall efficiency, conversational AI platforms offer organizations the opportunity to forge stronger connections with their audience, provide instant assistance, and gather valuable insights from user interactions. From understanding user intent to generating coherent responses, conversational AI platforms help business create lifelike conversations that meet customer needs efficiently.
Read Next: Top Natural Language Processing Companies
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