1.
The Conversational
Interface

2.
Partner at Digital Intent and Founder Equity. Kellogg Professor. Very pale.
Hi.

3.
Product strategy, user experience design, web/mobile/bot development and
digital marketing under one roof.
Over 60 team members, with offices in Chicago, Dallas and Columbus.
#620 on the 2015 Inc. 5000, with over 735% revenue growth in 3 years.
An innovation team in a box.

4.
What

5.
Us learning how to
interact with computers.

6.
Computers learning how
to interact with us.

7.
Conversational
Interfaces
Bots

8.
Conversational
Interfaces

9.
Retrieval based models

10.
Generative models

11.
vs.

12.
Why

13.
Messaging apps have surpassed social networks.
3 billion users
2.5 billion users
Monthly actives for big 4 social networking apps vs. big 4 messaging apps. Source.
2012 2016

14.
1) Feels more personal than apps.

15.
“Language is the most powerful, useful, effective
communication technology ever, period.”
Source

16.
Source

17.
Source

18.
1) Feels more personal than apps.
2) More appropriate for many interactions.

19.
“I like the idea of not having
to download an entire app.”

20.
0 Apps
1 App
2 Apps
3 Apps
4 Apps
5-7 Apps
8+ Apps
Most people download 0 new apps per month.

21.
“I actually prefer giving my
information to a bot than a person
because there’s no judgment.”

22.
“Sometimes I don’t want to
browse - I just want you to
tell me what to get.”

23.
“My kids text all day, but they
don’t use email at all.”

24.
1) Feels more personal than apps.
2) More appropriate for many interactions.
3) Available wherever a user wants.

25.
“Conversational commerce is about delivering
convenience, personalization, and decision
support while people are on the go, with only
partial attention to spare.”
Source

26.
“Alexa, ask Uber to
request a ride”

27.
I need to return
an item.
I’m looking for a
black cocktail dress.

28.
1) Feels more personal than apps.
2) More appropriate for many interactions.
3) Available wherever a user wants.
4) Can make non-experts experts.

29.
Messaging apps become the new home screen

30.
How

31.
Building a bot is easy.
Building an intelligent
one is hard.

32.
Use a retrieval-based
model (for now).

33.
Narrow the domain.

34.
“The challenge in plugging an AI into a
'conversational' chat bot interface is that you
don't have HAL 9000 but are in some sense
pretending to the user that you do.”
Source

35.
Spend a lot of time
error handling.

36.
“When it comes to interactions with bot,
alignment should be the highest-order user
experience objective.”
Source

37.
“With chat, the UI is the log file. Debugging
becomes very easy. And every user interaction is
product feedback.”
Source

38.
Acquisition
Users visit the site.
Activation
Users have a good first experience.
Retention
Users come back.
Referral
Users tell their friends.
Revenue

39.
We don’t know how new apps will be discovered.

40.
Simplify data entry.

41.
Avoid replicating phone trees.

42.
Curation appears to be more effective (for now).

43.
Natural language filtering.

44.
Image-based search.

45.
Bake in delighters.

46.
Context is huge.

47.
Develop a relationship with the customer over time.

48.
Use notifications intelligently and prudently.

49.
Nobody knows yet.

50.
Group shopping?

51.
When

52.
1) PR opportunity.
2) Capitalize on unsaturated channel.
3) Barriers to entry are lower.
4) Figure out what works faster.
5) More data = smarter bots.

53.
Build
Measure
Learn
Ideas
ProductData

54.
Build version one now.
Learn what works.
Repeat.

55.
Let’s build something
great together.
Thanks for talking today. To learn more about how DI can help with your digital
innovation needs, contact Sean at 312-213-0498 or sean@digintent.com