Leveraging Watson Assistant and Watson Speech to Text

IBM Korea and Hansol Inticube are joining forces to transform domestic call centers into AI-based intelligent businesses.
IBM Korea announced on the 26th that it will provide AI voice support solutions to domestic call centers using IBM Watson Assistant and Watson Speech to Text in collaboration with Hansol Inticube, a domestic digital contact center specialist.

As of April 2018, the domestic call center market is estimated to have 420,000 employees, an industry size of approximately 4 trillion won, and approximately 700 call center operating companies.

Recently, the demand for intelligent call centers that connect customers with AI voice bots for first-time responses and then connect them to professional staff when detailed consultation is needed has been continuously increasing. Customers can receive consultations quickly without waiting, and consultants can handle complex and difficult tasks instead of simple repetitive tasks, allowing companies to enjoy improved operational efficiency and improved service quality.

IBM Watson Assistant's natural language processing and natural language learning technologies can identify not only inaccurate pronunciations, but also age, dialect, and gender tone characteristics. Natural language processing technology understands the customer's expressions in the overall context, and natural language learning technology recognizes the intent and nuance contained in the customer's query.

By using IBM Watson Speech-to-Text, which converts speech to text to help understand the context of a question, the AI voice bot can quickly provide the most appropriate answer to a customer's question.

IBM Korea and Hansol Inticube plan to first target the financial call center market, where interest in AI-based voice bot solutions is increasing, based on the success stories of Hyundai Card and domestic financial companies launched in early 2019.

Hansol Inticube plans to combine Watson and Watson Speech to Text with Inticube ISAC, which it has developed as a next-generation communication solution. Isaac consists of SOE (Service Orchestration Engine) and Voice Gateway, which are essential for connecting existing call centers and counselors with AI.

The solution also leverages IBM Cloud Pak for Data, allowing call center organizations to leverage Watson’s core capabilities wherever their enterprise data and applications reside. Cloud Pack for Data enables you to build AI regardless of where your call center-related data and apps are located, making it easier, faster, and more cost-effective to build intelligent call centers.

“IBM Watson is already being used to support customers and consultants in the call centers of leading global banks and financial institutions, including Mutual Credit, RBS, U Bank, and Bradesco,” said Kim Jong-hoon, executive vice president and general manager of IBM Korea’s Cloud and Cognitive Software business. “Based on our extensive know-how and expertise, we plan to support domestic financial company call centers to achieve digital innovation using hybrid cloud-based AI, thereby reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency.”

He continued, “We will continue to discover specialized companies that seek to innovate specific industries using AI, such as Hansol Inticube, as partners and promote the development of new products,” adding, “We are already pushing to strengthen our partnership with SK C&C on cloud and Watson.”