Some answers, when the discussion is really articulated, leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. Others, on the other hand, are sensationally spot on: just enough to close the exchange and proceed to the next email. But probably with the upgrade to paid plans (basic from 9.99 euros per month and pro from 24.90) the former would also improve.
Userbot, a Milanese startup founded in 2017 by Antonio Giarrusso, made its worldwide debut Ovy, a virtual assistant who answers emails for us. Better: in the worst case scenario, it only takes a single click to understand in what tone to reply, thus generating a contextualized response to the interlocutor.
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Ovy was born from the consolidated experience of Userbot in the field of conversational artificial intelligence. The startup develops solutions to automate conversations between people and companies (for example, service or support centers, or for the Public Administration) via chat, voice calls and virtual assistants from human appearances, to respond to requests in real time. The platform is based on a proprietary and patented technology based on natural language processing and deep learning via artificial neural networks: a solution able to intervene on all digital channels of a company. Even in e-mail exchanges. In this case, however, available to everyone, not just for those who manage a company.
“?? Ovy generates replies by understanding who is the recipient, the text of the initial email and the intention of the sender – told us Giarrusso, born in 1988 – Artificial intelligence is trained on thousands of emails and online content, using a generative language engine, that is, able to autonomously generate responses without having previously been trained to respond in a certain way. The results obtained so far have been excellent, even the first feedback received from international users with the launch on Product Hunt has been exciting. In any case, the responses generated by Ovy are never sent automatically, but they can always be supervised and modified before sendingindeed they can even be automatically regenerated to slightly change the sense of the response. In this way, the user always has control over what he writes and sends, removing any risk of bad impression or accidents “.
As for the starting idea, explains the engineer who has the success of an app like iMathematics with 3 million users behind him, “Ovy was born almost by chance: after the Christmas holidays our inboxes were really full. . What of which we realized is that we spend most of our days reading and replying to emails. So we thought: will it always be like this? According to our vision, artificial intelligence technologies will become more and more efficient and a touch will be enough to reply to emails: the AI will know us so well, thanks to the data available, that with minimal input they will be able to manage emails for us. The system started out as an experiment, applying our technology directly to my inbox. It worked so surprisingly that we decided to build a complete product ”.
How long does it take to respond to emails
According to a recent report from McKinsey & Company, an average person spends 28% of their working day responding to accumulated messages in their inbox. About two and a half hours each day are used to process and contextualize a reply email. Ovy intervenes precisely on this front, which is not a little frustrating: download the extension for Google Chromeyou authorize it to connect with the account on Gmail and it begins. At each reply, if you do not intend to proceed by writing or dictating a reply but delegating the composition to artificial intelligence, just click one of the 4 emojis available: the thumb up will prepare a positive answer, the downward negative one, hands joined a thank you and the calendar will propose the right day and time for a call or an appointment in the flesh and bone. If, on the other hand, you want to be a little more precise, you can choose Generate Reply and provide some more ingredients to this kind of Thermomix of emails: you give an idea and choose the tone of the message (respectful, peremptory, friendly, informal and so on. via), to have the ideal replica come out.
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Also compare appointments on the calendar
Ovy automatically identifies who the recipient is and the content of the message to write a complete and context-relevant response. Even if the impression, at least in the basic version, is that a minimum of it needs to be remedied. Not only that: it is also multilingual and is able to identify the language of the message in real time, generating a response in the same language. AND thanks to the integration with Google Calendar, the mechanism can plan the next meetings. As mentioned, just click the dedicated icon to allow the system to compare the availability of the agenda, generate an adequate response and propose to set a meeting for a specific date and time based on availability.
“At the moment Ovy is only available for Chrome and Gmail, because from our market research they are the most used browser and email client, but we want also support other browsers, such as Edge, Firefox and Safariand other clients, such as Outlook and Yahoo “, Giarrusso told us again, who founded Userbot when he was 28 and two years earlier had already debuted, in London, Mobixee Limited, a company with a portfolio of apps used by 5 million users.
But there is a way to distinguish a human response from an artificial one? “At the moment there is no way to recognize it – concluded the founder and CEO of Userbot, one of the leading AI experts in Italy – Ovy is simply an assistant who helps us to write and respond to emails in a faster and smarter way. . Not for nothing, his name is the English diminutive of Ovid, among the main exponents of Latin literature and elegiac poetry. Who better than him to write the emails for us? “.