Oracle’s Mobility Strategy—Mobile App Fatigue Gives Way to Conversational UI through Intelligent Bots

Even as enterprises look to implement a seamless mobility strategy, the mandate for digital transformation is forcing a rethink of the role of mobility. The mobile is at the forefront of this digital transformation through intelligent chatbots, according to Oracle. In the rapidly expanding mobile economy, businesses are looking for smart and personalized ways to engage with customers via mobile devices.

We start with two broad observed trends: On one hand, there’s increasing mobile app fatigue. On the other, usage of virtual private assistants (Ex: Siri on Apple devices) is on the rise. Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to be on the verge of broader adoption.

In an interaction with Dataquest, Suhas Uliyar, VP-Product Management (Mobile, Bots & AI), Oracle, spoke about Oracle’s strategy for enterprise mobility solutions through Oracle Mobile Cloud and its Intelligent Bot Solutions.

Conversational UI- The Next Big Thing in Mobile

Back in 2013, when Uliyar joined the mobility group at Oracle, it was decided that conversational UI would be the next big thing in mobiles. Apps were very popular then, there was an app for everything. In fact, there was apps overload soon. Moreover, from an enterprise perspective, justifying use cases and investments for mobile apps was not easy, primarily because it was not considered strategic enough.

Suhas Uliyar, VP-Product Management (Mobile, Bots & AI), Oracle

The thinking at Oracle was that user experiences are dependent on the channels of interaction and the idea was to build one platform to capture ambient user experience and that has the intelligence about the usage of channels. Uliyar outlines four key design principles:

1. Mobile app integration has to deal with networks, intermittent connectivity, and UI. Mobiles would require optimized API. Mobile is not a front-end to the back-end, it must feed multiple applications.
2. Bot is not asynchronous, whatever is built for mobile can be used for bots.
3. Enterprise usage would need single sign-on with three-factor authentication.
4. Learn from the convergence of mobile and conversational UI. Instant app is a micro app, a dedicated app for just that function. It shouldn’t allow the user to leave the bot. Oracle built its end-to-end chatbot platform using a low-code, declarative design with backend integration and making batch testing possible. Oracle has also made it simple for enterprises to develop bots with the low-code Bot Builder tool.

Uliyar believes that intelligent bots and conversational UI opens up many new possibilities. He said, “Most of us are familiar with online and mobile banking; but, chatbot banking could well be the future – and it might become a reality sooner than you think!”

Ed Nair | dqindia

Leveraging a powerful AI foundation comprised of machine learning, cognitive and knowledge services, dialog and context, and deep learning, the updated Oracle Mobile Cloud enables enterprises to build applications that can automate more engaging conversations at scale. For example, Oracle’s intelligent Bots use deep learning-based natural language understanding (NLU) to comprehend and determine intent of end-user conversations. It can then help companies process these conversations, integrate each with existing business application data, and automatically respond.

“The market opportunity for artificial intelligence and AI-enabled applications is substantial," says David Schubmehl, research director, Cognitive/Artificial Intelligence Systems at IDC. "We expect this to be a rapidly expanding area for both enterprise and commercial development as organizations race to embed predictive and prescriptive capabilities into their applications portfolio to deliver smarter software solutions to customers.”

Extending the Bots Ecosystem

Oracle’s intelligent bots can support many of today’s most popular interaction channels including messaging clients such as Facebook Messenger, Kik, Skype, Slack, and digital voice assistants such as Amazon Echo, Amazon Dot and GoogleHome. Additionally, Oracle’s intelligent bots provide native and JavaScript SDK to extend mobile and web-based applications with chat and voice capabilities via Apple Siri, GoogleVoice or Microsoft Cortana. Supporting many of today’s most popular interaction channels would help customers have powerful, contextual conversations with their end users through almost any platform, says Uliyar.

Oracle would continue to extend support to new interaction channels and platforms as they evolve. Recently, Oracle agreed to embed Chatbox Instant Apps in Oracle Mobile Cloud. Chatbox Inc., a Seattle, Wa- based company, provides a simple scalable solution for businesses to communicate with customers where they respond best—messaging. Leveraging Chatbox technology, Oracle Mobile Cloud will now offer customers a chatbot that can deliver an interface that is appropriate to the interaction, such as an online form with pertinent information from the conversation. For example, using Oracle Mobile Cloud with Chatbox, a consumer interacting with a bot to return a retail item would use a Chatbox Instant App.