Chat robots are revolutionizing how we communicate with computers and they’re becoming big business. Swiss companies also benefit from this.
They rhyme, they program, they write whole exams: chat robots like ChatGPT are fundamentally changing how we communicate with computers. “We are currently experiencing a moment that is comparable to the advent of the first Internet browser,” says tech investor Andreas Göldi.
“Suddenly, technology that has been around for many years is available to the average consumer,” he says: “Many are realizing how useful AI can be in our daily lives.” Artificial intelligence – or AI for short – is becoming a huge business. Market observers estimate that this year for the first time more than 500 billion dollars will be invested in companies with artificial intelligence applications. Swiss start-ups are also benefiting from the boom.
Brack relies on an AI program for customer service
Customer service at Competec, the parent company of electronics retailer Brack. Clerk Joanna O’Hanlon recently had a digital assistant, a kind of email chat robot: “The program makes my work more efficient,” she says. The chat robot helps her to write answers faster with automatically generated text suggestions.
Legend:
The chatbot makes Joanna O’Hanlon’s job easier and more efficient. In one thing, however, it cannot replace the AI: “The personal touch in the text always comes from me,” she says.
SRF
The program of the Swiss start-up “Typewise” is more than a sophisticated auto-completion: Using hundreds of thousands of emails from the Brack customer service, it has learned how the company communicates with its customers. Proposals are created on this basis.
Legend:
“The program makes our answers more consistent and linguistically correct,” says Andrej Golob von Brack. The “Typewise” program makes customer service around ten percent more efficient.
SRF
“Financially, we don’t save anything,” says Brack’s executive board member Andrej Golob. “But we can use the time to process more inquiries and also improve quality.”
conversation with the computer
Simply speak to someone in a foreign language: that’s what the Swiss app “Quazel” offers. You can have conversations with the chat robot via voice input, which answers with an artificially generated voice. In this way, conversations can actually arise, be it about fishing, about the country and people or tourist activities.
Legend:
Philipp Hadjimina (middle) in a meeting with his team from “Quazel” in the San Francisco office. “The aim of the app is that users get the impression of a real conversation,” says the co-founder.
SRF
Co-founder Philipp Hadjimina says: “This is how you can continuously improve your language skills.” The three founders are currently working in an Airbnb in San Francisco and have won a renowned start-up funding program. A well-known language learning platform has already knocked on the door: “But our goal is to remain independent and to grow,” says Philipp Hadjimina.
The fight for the future of AI
Chat robots with artificial intelligence: In the future, they will support us in everyday life. Be it when writing an e-mail or searching the Internet. Microsoft is currently ahead of the game here: The group has invested a good ten billion in the company OpenAI, which is behind ChatGPT. The goal: to launch a search engine with a chat function. This is already accessible for selected users.
This is an economic factor: So far, Microsoft and its search engine Bing have only held about three percent of the global share, top dog Google is well over 90 percent. That’s why Google wants to follow suit soon with its software known as “Bard”.
The chat robots will soon be able to do much more than rhyme, search and write: Microsoft and Google want to integrate them into their word processing and spreadsheet programs. This should make new applications possible.