2017 Business Excellence Awards

24 Acquisition International - Business Excellence Awards 2017 Cognitive Computing Company of the Year 2017 & Award for Excellence in AI Innovations Volume Founded in 1997, Volume is one of just a few companies to have taken artificially intelligent applications to market; one of the only businesses to have resident robots; and the first in the world to have a cognitive website: an example of its Digital Concierge® application. Chris discusses the benefits of this innovative technology. “Speak to any soon-to-be parents, and within a few minutes you’ll become aware: they know that raising children is perhaps one of the most rewarding things we can do, they’re excited for their journey into mother- and fatherhood (if a little nervous), but above all else, they are hideously unprepared. “The same can be said of organisations about to enter the world of artificial intelligence (AI). They know it will empower them to improve the customer experience, free their workforce from the mundane and automate the first touch. They know it’s a worthy investment, they have heard the hype and they look forward to achieving real results with smart machines. What they don’t know is where to start, and what will be required from them. “As such, at Volume we not only provide that guidance and a roadmap for businesses looking to design, develop and deploy an AI solution – we produce, launch and train apps ourselves, with the expertise of our dedicated teams that specialise in cognitive computing, artificial intelligence and experiential robotics. We’ve even established a technology company – the Colombo Centre for Cognitive Computing (CogCom) – and have our own Interactive Experience wing in Plymouth.” Though the firm’s innovative Conversational AI platforms, LUSY and SUSY, the firm are now able to achieve great things. The firm provided them with data and spent hours tirelessly trying to teach them to walk, think and talk. In order to teach the applications true interaction, Volume put them in front of its closest peers and families, because the only way for them to learn was through end-user interaction, as Chris explains. “Our approach revolved around taking LUSY and SUSY out into the world before they were Volume is a leading global technology and innovation company, responding proactively to Industry 4.0 by developing award-winning content in a future- ready format. We invited Chris Sykes to tell us more. Company: Volume Contact: Chris Sykes Contact Email: [email protected] Address: Buckhurst Court, London Road, Wokingham, Berkshire, RG40 1PA, UK Telephone: 0118 977 5800 Web Address: www.volume.ai BE170085 really ready, to teach them its ways. We faced setbacks along the route, including complexities in handling natural language processing (NLP) and unstructured data, but developed our own propriety technology to overcome them. We enlisted nannies and babysitters and teachers, from CX specialists and cognitive designers to data scientists who understood our solutions’ inner workings. Eventually, we found ourselves with two mature applications that now receive positive feedback from all that encounter them. “Throughout this time, we coined our own method of assisting businesses with their AI adoption and journey. It’s called the Cognitive Solution Implementation Programme (CSIP), and it’s a four-phased approach that helps organisations in multiple industry sectors understand what AI can contribute to the company, then how to get going. Ultimately, Volume’s mantra is ‘Look Forward’, and as such the Chris does just that as he proudly outlines the firm’s latest innovation and how this will revolutionise the AI market. “Looking ahead, we are currently developing a new application, CASY, or the corpus assessment system, will pull LUSY, SUSY and our customers’ apps into line – much like any sassy little sister – by guiding us through a step-by-step process of assessing and managing a data model using intuitive tooling. It’s this data model that allows us to extract the highest degree of accuracy out of our technology. “Once CASY is deployed, we will continue to advance LUSY’s development, and hope that soon she’ll be able to identify users’ moods as well as what they’re asking. She can then serve up answers to their questions in a way that suits their state of mind and personality. In time, she might even be able to recognise return visitors and their facial expression using pioneering recognition technologies.” “...allows us to extract the highest degree of accuracy out of our technology.”