AI-based virtual agent for call centers lowers costs, improves caller experience

It seems as if the work that DFKI in Germany with their Persona work almost 20 years ago and others (like Patti Maes) working on Autonomous Intelligent Software Bots finally made it into the mainstream. And it's a killer application! Call centers are at the forefront of any consumer experience with a service-oriented large business. And we probably have all our stories to share of waiting for hours on the line to talk to a human being in order just to get very uniformed and generalized answers. Here now might be solution to the problem. With these autonomous AI bots, theoretically no wait is necessary anymore and - due to the bots ability to instantly access, correlate and process much large amounts of personal and other information, it might actually be able to give better, more personalized and context-relevant advice.
So - if suddenly you you have a drastically improved consumer experience with a call center - there might be a bot talking to you ....

http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=news_single.html?id%3D9980