The coming proliferation of intelligent digital assistants (IDAs), when IDAs will represent their human owners, is a key step in the emergence of an autonomous business environment. To accommodate such rapid changes, online platform providers must upgrade their capabilities and business models to better contend with factors such as AI, scalable infrastructure, anayltics, API-based development, and advances in product search and discovery.

1. The Coming Intelligent Digital Assistant
Era and Its Impact on Online Platforms
As digital agents increasingly represent their human owners, online
platform providers must upgrade their technology infrastructure
to accommodate new ways of product search and discovery as well
as rethink their business models to stay relevant in the impending
autonomous business era.
Executive Summary
John’s personal assistant reminded him about
his dad’s upcoming birthday. He then asked his
assistant for a suggestion on a gift. Knowing the
family and his father’s preferences, likes and
dislikes, John’s assistant recommended a fitness
band. John asked his assistant to order it right
away from his usual e-commerce platform. His
assistant then reminded him of a recent bad
experience with product delivery and customer
service, and suggested another site. John agreed
instantly, prompting the assistant to place
the order to be delivered on his Dad’s birthday
at 10 am.
John’s helper in this fictional scenario is a sophis-
ticated, powerful and intelligent digital assistant
(IDA) that resides on his handheld/wearable
device. More than just delivering a reminder,
the IDA scans partner websites/apps, product
catalogs, seller/product reviews and patterns to
curate a small list of gifts. To perform this task,
John’s IDA maintains records on personal pref-
erences, researches multiple websites/apps and
sifts through thousands of products and reviews.
As farfetched as the above scenario may seem,
in reality this type of IDA will be commonplace
in the near future. According to Gartner’s 2016
strategic predictions report,1
“by year-end 2018,
customer digital assistants will recognize indi-
viduals by face and voice across channels and
partners.”
The rise of IDAs will impact the way businesses
plan and operate, as well as how consumers
interact with personal and enterprise tech-
nologies. Many consumer-facing companies
across industries such as Royal Dutch Shell2
are
piloting cognitive digital assistants that manage
customer queries with minimal manual interven-
tions. The meteoric rise of IDAs is being fueled
by advances in technologies such as natural
language processing (NLP), artificial intelli-
gence (AI) and machine learning, supported
by high-speed Internet connectivity and cloud
computing. The IDA movement is expected to
accelerate as tech giants such as Google and
Microsoft, and new-age start-ups like Viv and
X.ai, convert their formidable R&D into minimally
viable products – or more.
cognizant 20-20 insights | february 2017
• Cognizant 20-20 Insights

2. cognizant 20-20 insights 2
While research enables the requisite technology
development, the IDA’s ability to combine infor-
mation from multiple sources (websites and
apps), and connect the dots adds real value
for consumers. A single IDA can eliminate a
consumer’s need to visit multiple websites/apps/
services (fulfilling similar requirements). As a
result, we foresee a huge change in the way
users will interact with online platforms. This
white paper emphasizes the urgency for online
platform providers to act now to stay relevant in
this emergent IDA era.
IDAs: From the Beginning
The digital assistant dates back to the late
1990s, with the Microsoft Clippy3
being one of
the originals. These nascent IDAs provided basic
assistance by leveraging linear search capabili-
ties, but were limited by the technology of the
time. They could not do much other than resolve
user queries, and often were more of a nuisance
than a boon. Most opted not to use the Clippy.
Since then, the technology has evolved from being
primarily transactional to intelligent and focused
on providing far better outcomes. The technology
computes thousands of situational parameters
and delivers options best suited for a search
query. For example, Siri, Google Now, Cortana
and Viv are examples of assistants that are not
only intelligent but also are gradually moving
toward being cognitive (i.e., able to understand
human behavior in ways that enable these IDAs
to provide customized responses based on the
needs of an individual). By staying ahead of the
IDA adoption curve, online platform providers can
better address the needs of users who depend
heavily on such environments for everything
from shopping and hiring a taxi to renting a room.
Moreover, as IDAs become mainstream, more
and more interactions between users and
online platforms will be assumed by the intel-
ligent devices. This holds promise for solving
key challenges that exist in today’s virtual world,
such as:
• User intent is not leveraged for search
results. Search technology on the Internet is
unintuitive and represents an unnatural way
for humans to interact with online platforms,
requiring user literacy and keyword knowledge.
One often overlooked fact is that while over
55% of Internet content is in English, that is a
first language for less than 5% of the world’s
population, with only 21% of the planet’s people
estimated to have some level of understanding.4
Moreover, most users are more comfortable
talking to each other to solve problems rather
than writing queries. Powered by strong NLP
1 John’s personal assistant
reminds him about his
dad’s birthday in the
coming week.
2 John asks his
assistant for a
suggestion for a gift.
3 Knowing the family and
their preferences, the
personal assistant shares
all available gift options.
6 John agrees, and his
assistant places the order
to be delivered on dad’s
birthday at 10 am.
5 His assistant reminds him
of bad experience with poor
customer service last time,
and goes on to suggest
another online platform for
fulfilling the order.
4 John asks for a gift to be
ordered right away from
his regular online platform.
Any suggestion
How IDAs Enhance Customer Journeys
Figure 1

3. cognizant 20-20 insights 3
programs and intent recognition algorithms
combined with speech-to-text software, IDAs
will use inferred intent and not merely words to
get the right results or perform tasks.
• Information overload is problematic. There
are over four million apps available on Google
Playstore, Apple iTunes and over a billion
websites worldwide. For music, for example,
users must navigate and consume an immense
amount of information manually before even
getting to select their musical choice. User
time is spent locating rather than analyzing/
consuming the information. IDAs will be
powered to discover the right informational
source according to user preferences and
needs.
• An inordinate amount of time and effort is
required for basic task management. Current
approaches force people to perform authen-
tication (and penalizes them for forgetting
passwords), search a long product list (not
remotely related to user preferences) and
process a payment (often after multiple failed
attempts). All this is followed by numerous
check-ins (until delivery), and often leads to
long calls with customer care for after-sales
support. IDAs can eliminate these unnecessary
and avoidable user touchpoints.
As IDAs evolve and address these challenges,
adoption is also expected to increase. Tractica
research forecasts that unique active consumer
IDA users will grow to 1.8 billion worldwide by
the end of 2021.5
This pace of adoption will be
propelled by two factors:
• Cross-device reach: Wider reach and access to
multiple devices connected to the Internet of
Things (IoT), including smart wearables, smart
homes and smart automobiles, make IDAs
more comprehensive for daily use and hence
increase the likelihood of adoption.
E-commerce Website
Mobile Applications
Web Applications
(Maps, Calendar)
Banking Platform
Users
Digital
Solutions –
Transactional
E-commerce Website
Mobile Applications
Web Applications
(Maps, Calendar)
Banking Platform
Users
Digital
Assistant –
Intelligent
Not Personalized
E-commerce Website
Mobile Applications
Web Applications
(Maps, Calendar)
Banking Platform
Intelligent
Digital
Assistant –
Behavioral
Emotionally Connected
with a Single User
Single User
Digital
Assistant 1
Digital
Assistant 2
Digital
Assistant 3
One
Technology
to Rule All
Intelligent
Digital
Assistant
Three Categories of Human-IDA Interaction
Figure 2

4. cognizant 20-20 insights 4
• Affordability: Advancement in technologies
such as high-speed Internet availability, cloud
computing, NLP, AI and analytics should make
IDAs more cost-effective and hence affordable
to the masses.
As noted, IDAs appear poised to be transformed
into a true multichannel virtual agent, featuring
the ability to simultaneously handle numerous
user engagement touchpoints. IDA evolution and
theadoptionofIDAswillchangehowusersinteract
IDA Enabled Touchpoints
(Automated and Personalized)
Existing Touchpoints
(Manual and Non Personalized)
• IDA manages personalized event
reminders shared with users.
• IDA enabled by smart UI/UX engages in
a conversation with customer.
• IDA shares information like gifting options
while considering a friend’s buying
preferences and the customer’s budget.
• Active use of analytics and social media
to understand user preferences and/or to
create reminders. E.g., contextualization
of information reminding user in advance
about close friends or relatives.
Discovery
Need for a
specific good
or service is
triggered by
specific events.
• Manually set event reminders, or pull
from social/public domain.
• Basic notification/alarm exists with
limited personalized information.
• Automated scanning of multiple
websites/apps to recommend product
based on past purchase, social media
feeds and preferences.
• Automated product quality analysis
based on product feedback available
universally.
• Dynamic product catalog display.
Research
Search for best
available good
or service.
• Toggle between multiple websites and
sources to find a right product.
• Manual product search to select items
within the website/app.
• Review user feedback and other
content to pick most preferred product
list and range of reliable providers.
• IDA orchestrated order placement,
payment & delivery tracking.
• Minimal user intervention needed.
• Analytics used to assess and select –
“payment mode” based on user’s past
preference, available account balance,
minimum transaction cost and best
available discount.
Purchase
Product
purchase
transaction and
related activities.
• Manual process for product
selection-to-order placement and
delivery.
• High demand for users’ interventions
at all steps.
• Search constrained by human
bandwidth, abilities and memory.
• Automated follow-ups and updates to
users.
• Automatic warranty management with
periodic service updates.
After-Sales
After-sales
product
warranty and
returns.
• Manual initiation of product return
process.
• Lack of warranty management
system in place.
The Art of the Possible: Digital Persona-IDA Interactions
Figure 3
with online platforms. To adapt to impending
change, online businesses must foresee how
new customer touchpoints will re-map business
processes and technology infrastructure in order
to anticipate such revised user needs.
IDAs Drive Changes in User Behavior
Figure 2 (see previous page) illustrates the three
meaningful ways we believe users will interact
with IDAs.

5. cognizant 20-20 insights 5
In the transactional phase, a user accesses an
individual application to perform a task, whereas
in the intelligent phase, the IDA can address
multiple (but limited) tasks (e.g., a chat bot that
can handle a financial transaction and also book
a taxi for a user). In the future, the IDA will be
more like a genie who handles all tasks like a true
personal assistant with limited touchpoints. This
touchpoint can be voice-enabled or might use a
simple user interface (UI).
Figure 3 (see previous page) illustrates user inter-
actions with online platforms, and evaluates each
touchpoint in detail to show how it will evolve
over the next few years.
Delving into this depiction, we see that in the
future IDA interactions will occur via a powerful
digital persona that constructs context from past
user experiences to arrive at a product/service/
location suggestion. Under such circumstances,
online platforms must evolve with the increased
intelligence and visibility of the IDA. To keep pace
with IDAs, we suggest a few key steps online
platform providers should take right now.
Online Platforms: Brace for Change
For online platform providers, technological
change is accelerating faster than ever; moreover,
IDA evolution is expected to outpace foundational
platform changes. It is therefore critical for online
platform providers to reimagine their business
models and make necessary changes at the user
management, platform architecture and partner
management levels to remain competitive.
We recommend that platform providers adapt by
undertaking the following key strategic steps.
• Technology: Figure 4 illustrates the future
technology architecture required to support
IDAs. Two key platform attributes that are
expected to change drastically are:
FIREWALL
How Platforms Can Embrace IDA Evolution
Cognitive Layer
Speech to TextText to Speech User Interface
UILayerIntegrationLayer
Analytics
Data on
Demand
Social Media
IoT
Geo Location
Mobile POS Partner WebCloud
Providers
Users
Patterns/Intent Recognition
Natural
Language
Processing
Artificial
Intelligence
Analytics
API Management Framework
(API Management, API Analytics, API Health)
Figure 4
In the coming IDA era, there
will be a greater need for online
platforms to harness data, captured
at different touchpoints, such as
tracking user journeys, vendor
management quality, etc.

6. cognizant 20-20 insights 6
>> User interactivity: With IDAs, requiring
userstoknowkeywordsinaspecificlanguage
to search for a product can be injurious to
business health. Platform providers will
need more natural ways to support user
interactions such as voice-enabled applica-
tions with multilingual capabilities. Text-to-
speech and speech-to-text converters will be
needed to form the core of the UI as they
will enable human-to-machine interactions.
In fact, according to comScore, 50% of
all searches will be voice searches by
2020.6
Moreover, with the increase in voice
searches, content would also need to be
search engine optimized (SEO) with a con-
versational tone. This is in stark contrast
from current optimizations where SEO
primarily focuses on keywords. Portals that
employ a conversational tone would perform
better than other portals.
>> Cognitive layer based on analytics,
machine learning and AI: In the coming
IDA era, there will be a greater need for
online platforms to harness data, captured
at different touchpoints, such as tracking
user journeys, vendor management quality,
etc. Data could be used across the value
chain to learn patterns and take preventive
measures. For example, AI could be applied
during consumer/IDA interactions where
the algorithm will make it easier for the
consumer/IDA to access product/service
information. AI could also be used in other
functions such as customer care, where
bots could provide automated answers —
which would reduce costs and enhance
responsiveness. AI could also be applied
on the supply side of a marketplace (e.g.,
vendor management), where data could
be analyzed to reward vendors with high
compliance and higher margins, etc. Overall,
optimum utilization of data would lead
to greater customer experiences with lower
costs.
• API management framework (i.e., the
“API’fication” of features and services):
As IDAs assume interactions across the user
journey, online platforms must expose more
of their offerings and services through a set
of standardized APIs. Building the technology
infrastructure around reusable and standard-
ized APIs will have multiple benefits:
>> It will promote information transparency,
thus making it easier for an IDA to inter-
act and get required information without
manual interventions.
>> APIs would bring more agility to the tech de-
velopment and make the entire process of
introducing a new feature faster and more
reliable.
• Managing changes in the ecosystem: Apart
from the technical and security related
changes, online platform providers will also
need to embrace ecosystem change. The
ecosystem comprises five major participants,
and will require a specific focus to manage
each: users, IDA platforms, competitors,
partners and developers.
>> Users and IDA platforms: As IDAs replace
manual interactions between humans and
online platforms, the line between a user
and IDA will blur. Since IDAs will be capable
of computing thousands of data points to
make decisions, the best (and hopefully
only) strategy for sustenance for an online
platform would be to provide the best quality
products/services at competitive prices.
Any lag in the service or product fulfillment
would lead to loss of business opportunity.
>> Competitors: The boundaries of competition
will also blur. We foresee that competition
among online platforms will not only be from
other platforms but also from other non-part-
ner IDAs. Under such circumstances, forging
a strong partnership with all major IDAs will
be critical, and is strongly recommended.
>> Partners: Collaboration between two
different sets of stakeholders will be critical
in the IDA era. One of the key partnerships
would focus on building a strong ecosystem
with vendors/resellers and suppliers. The
other necessary partnership will be with
IDAs that focus on transparency of informa-
tion and technical integrations.
»» Partnership with existing resellers/
vendors/suppliers, etc.: The goal of
online platforms and their partners would
be tightly coupled to make the supply side
As IDAs replace manual
interactions between humans and
online platforms, the line between a
user and IDA will blur.

7. cognizant 20-20 insights 7
of ecosystems work to their advantage.
Technology enablement and deep inte-
grations based on an IDA framework will
help smaller vendors scale as business
grows and would also aid in improving
stickiness with the online platform.
»» Partnership with IDAs: The goal of
online platforms would be to build a
long-term partnership with an IDA built
on trust, transparency and quality of
service, thus enabling the demand side of
the ecosystem. Two key aspects that must
be considered:
1. Partnership rules: The norms of
engagement with IDAs would require
clear terms of services and an emphasis
on sharing information with sufficient
security. Also, since online platforms
will enable IDAs and at the same time
compete with them, one strategy to
control the monopoly of IDAs would be
to partner with multiple IDAs.
2. Technical configurations: Online
platform providers must ensure that
their internal systems are robust and
standardized so they can respond to
requests from IDAs without any manual
interventions. In return, online platform
providers can expect to gain access to
customer insights (from the persona the
IDA represents), which can help such
platforms to optimize operations and
further enhance their user experience.
>> Developers: Whether it is in-house deve-
lopers who build and maintain technology
platforms or external developers who
provide niche products/services, they will
need new skill sets. In the IDA era, we predict
the dependency on UI/UX will decline signifi-
cantly, and there will be an increased need
for core skills that involve building scalable
architectures, designing with universal APIs
and working with data analytics.
• Governance, security and risk: Secure the
code and make interaction risk-free.
In the recommendations above, we advocated
policies of openness, information transparency
and coexistence. Hence, it will be an interesting
challenge to build systems that allow all of the
above and yet remain strong enough to secure
the data and systems from hackers, competi-
tors and even malicious code in the IDA itself. To
accomplish this, a strong and secure authentica-
tion mechanism, an effective security policy and
compliance to global standards must be clearly
embedded in the business logic. Following are a
few recommendations that could be considered
while information exchange takes place with IDAs:
• Channel encryption: All exchanged informa-
tion would need to be encrypted, and only the
partner IDA would be able to decrypt the infor-
mation.
• Rules for data handling and storage:
Monitoring the data being consumed and
stored can help in detecting misuse of infor-
mation. Moreover, policies on what data can
be stored on IDAs and what needs to be called
through APIs on the fly need to be established.
Drilling further down, if data is being stored,
how it is being used, and who has access to it
must be published, and this information should
be accessible to all key stakeholders.
• Fraudulence: A process would also be
required for continuous monitoring to prevent
fraudulent activities on an ongoing basis.
The Way Forward
“By year-end 2018, 25% of customer service and
support operations will integrate virtual customer
assistant technology across engagement
channels,” according to a recent Gartner report.8
But this represents just the beginning of an
era. IDAs place greater demands on existing
processes and technology, and as a result online
platform companies must take a holistic approach
to upgrade and extend existing business tech-
nologies. Generally, companies have chosen
the incremental approach to improve their IT
infrastructure; however, the exponentially rising
threat represented by IDAs is creating an urgent
need for online platform companies to holistically
upgrade their IT infrastructure to remain business
In the IDA era, we predict the
dependency on UI/UX will decline
significantly, and there will be
an increased need for core skills
that involve building scalable
architectures, designing with
universal APIs and working with
data analytics.

8. cognizant 20-20 insights 8
relevant. The mantra for winning in the IDA era
pivots around the following three key tenets (see
Figure 5).
• Address technological changes. An extensible
IT infrastructure needs to be put in place
today to support IDAs’ accelerating require-
ments. Online developers should start with
key initiatives such as API-based development,
focusing on conversational commerce and
developing skillsets around core capabilities
such as analytics, scalable infrastructures, etc.
Since there are no shortcuts for developing
these capabilities (they all take time to build
Footnotes
1.
Heather Pemberton Levy, “Gartner Predicts Our Digital Future,” Oct. 6, 2015, Smarter With Gartner,
www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/gartner-predicts-our-digital-future.
2.
Joanna Goodman, “Digital Assistants: A New Brand Platform,” January 2016, The Guardian, www.the-
guardian.com/media-network/2016/jan/29/virtual-assistants-brand-platform.
3.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant.
4.
“Unlocking relevant Web content for the next 4 billion people”, November 2014, GSMA &
Mozilla whitepaper, wiki.gsmaintelligence.com/gsma_kb/images/5/5f/Mozilla_GSMA_LocalCon-
tentSmartphones.pdf.
5.
Virtual Digital Assistants, 3Q 2016, Tractica Research, www.tractica.com/research/virtual-digital-assis-
tants.
6.
Christi Olson, “Just say it: The future of search is voice and personal digital assistants”, April 2016,
Campaign, www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/1392459/just-say-it-future-search-voice-personal-digital-
assistants.
7.
IBID.
8.
community.dynamics.com/b/msftdynamicsblog/archive/2016/02/19/16-statistics-shaping-the-future-
of-customer-service.
and mature), early movers will seize the high
ground.
• Build trust and loyalty through partnerships
and information availability. Partnerships
with vendors/sellers on one hand and with IDA
developers on the other must be balanced.
While the former would help in building a
strong supply side ecosystem, the latter would
ensure a strong demand side ecosystem. Both
must happen simultaneously.
• Build robust security and governance. Part-
nerships and the exchange of information
over the Web requires strong security and
governance mechanisms to protect data and
customer privacy. This would require not only
robust technology but also a set of fair rules
that define terms of service and relationships
between IDAs and online platforms.
Given the pace of change in the IDA space, we
strongly recommend online platform providers
to act now. They should reevaluate their strategy,
modify platform rules and revamp their archi-
tecture to accommodate impending require-
ments from customers (both human users and
IDAs). The companies that do not act swiftly may
become less favored options for IDAs and even-
tuallyend up losing customers and subsequently
market share to the platforms that fully embrace
the IDA era.
Partnership Technology Security &
Risk
Underlying Principles and Governance Structure
Keys to IDA Success
Figure 5

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About the Authors
Raghu Ramamurthy is a Practice Leader within Cognizant Business Consulting. He is a technology and
manufacturing thought leader with 20 years of business consulting experience across several industry
verticals — technology, manufacturing and retail. Raghu’s functional expertise spans supply chain
management, global information systems (GIS) and digital transformation. He holds an M.B.A. from
Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow. Raghu can be reached at Raghu.Ramamurthy@cognizant.com.
Amit Morya is a Senior Manager within Cognizant Business Consulting’s Communications and Technology
Practice. He is a Certified Project Management Professional and Agile Certified Practitioner, with 12 years
of strong consulting experience in the areas of product and program management, digital transforma-
tion and IT strategy. Amit holds an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, Delhi, and a B.Tech.
from Indian Institute of Technology (BHU), Varanasi. He can be reached at Amit.Morya@cognizant.com |
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amit-morya-2463041.
Lekha Karthik is a Manager within Cognizant Business Consulting’s Strategy and Transformation Practice.
She has over 10 years of extensive consulting and IT transformation experience. Lekha has advised and
consulted with clients across a variety of domains and geographies and has rich experience in organiza-
tion change and program management, and digital strategy. She holds an M.B.A. from Indian School of
Business, Hyderabad, and a B.Tech. from National Institute of Technology (NIT), Jaipur. Lekha can be
reached at Lekha.Ojha@cognizant.com | https://au.linkedin.com/in/lekha-karthik-628635b.
Mohit Vijay is a Senior Consultant within Cognizant Business Consulting’s Analytics and Informa-
tion Management Practice. He has seven-plus years of consulting and product/program management
experience in providing BI, data strategy and business analytics advisory to clients across domains
including retail, hospitality and technology. Mohit holds an M.B.A. from SP Jain, Mumbai, and a B.Tech.
from Rajasthan University. He can be reached at Mohit.Vijay@cognizant.com | https://in.linkedin.com/in/
mohit-vijay-57510b6.
Anurup Gupta is a Senior Consultant within Cognizant Business Consulting’s Communications and
Technology Practice. He has over seven years of consulting experience in areas of retail marketing digital
transformation, and product and program management. Anurup holds an M.B.A. from MDI, Gurgaon, and
a B.Tech. from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi. He can be reached at Anurup.Gupta@
cognizant.com | https://in.linkedin.com/in/anurup1.