Serko Embeds Digital Assistant into Zeno

Corporate booking tool provider Serko has partnered with artificial intelligence-driven customer service company FaceMe to deliver a human-like travel digital assistant that responds verbally to travel requests. The technology behind the "chat" side of the chatbot is similar to what is already found in Zeno's Ask Zeno platform, with the same content, the same policy configurations and the same AI-based workflows and user recognition. But it delivers information via an interface that simulates human facial structure and expressions associated with listening and reacting to requests.

That's where FaceMe literally enters the picture. The New Zealand-based AI customer service platform has created the visual "bot" part of the chatbot. The company offers hundreds of different "looks" in terms of visualizing male, female or neutral bots and it can build bots to spec—to look like a lead consultant at the agency or other customizations that communicate a company's brand or culture. So, it looks like an agent; does it offer service like one? Judge for yourself.

Serko CEO Darrin Grafton told BTN the company is looking to establish with corporate travelers an "emotional relationship to the technology" or "to the brand," that makes people want to come back and use it again. He posited it's a connection that goes beyond what a flat chat interface can offer. "We see this as an extension of the tools already in play: online booking tools, mobile booking tools, chat and now we have a digital assistant."

To that end, the technology offers an enhancement of the chat interface. Not only has Serko attempted to simulate the appearance of human emotions with bot visuals, it also has used tools like Microsoft Cognitive Services to enable the digital assistant to recognize user voice and facial cues via microphone and webcam to detect when the traveler is frustrated with the system or confused. At that point, said Grafton, the system can flip to a human agent to resolve issues.

For now, he said, the digital assistant works on simpler interactions like making and changing bookings, but the conversational interface holds promise for trickier decision-making workflows that may be required sooner rather than later.

Take New Distribution Capability. The Zeno booking tool is built to accommodate NDC's complexity, as demonstrated at BTN's Innovate conference last year. However, criticisms levied against the tool included the number of menu items and drop-downs required to get to final booking through the NDC workflow. AI-powered conversational interfaces could take a different approach, Grafton said, leveraging the user's historic data to ask or remind them of options that might be more efficient or offer more value.

Grafton invoked baggage fees as a prime example of where an AI-powered bot might suggest better alternatives, by not only using historical travel data but also pulling in expense data to see if bag carriage or any ancillary service wasn't purchased upfront but added after the booking. With this "knowledge,"  the conversational interface could suggest that the traveler accept a value-based bundle that includes their past ancillary purchases, eliminating workflow steps that today must be included in display-based booking tools. The ability to leverage expense data isn't currently available but is something Serko is looking to roll out in the next six to nine months.

Could this be accomplished in a flat chat-based platform? Theoretically, yes. But the human engagement and trust factor might be reduced compared to the digital assistant. The eagerness of travelers to adopt this type of interface, based on a test group at Flight Centre Travel Group's Illuminate conference last September, surprised Grafton. "You're always trying to balance how fast to push this type of technology and to soften the process," he said, "but overwhelmingly, the audience said they would use it."

That said, Zeno's digital assistant "doesn't have to fit everybody," Grafton acknowledged. It's a separate module that comes at a cost to travel management companies that use Zeno technology. "A TMC may choose to open the opportunity to a certain set of clients or customize something for a particular client."

Data security has been a particular concern as Serko developed the digital assistant technology, given the ability to capture facial expressions and voice nuances and associate those with the individual user. Grafton underscored that such data was destroyed after each interaction with the bot, retaining only what is necessary to feed the user's dynamic archive of historic bookings, which is what drives the AI.

Top of mind for Grafton is pushing through the limitations of traditional corporate booking technologies and delivering faster, better and more engaging results for the user. "We don't have to have the boring style. Enterprise can have consumer cool with all the business principles that are needed."