Talkdesk launches AI Trainer, the first ‘human-in-the-loop’ tool for contact centres

Talkdesk AI Trainer moves the company one step further in its vision to automate 80 per cent of customer interactions and gives agents and supervisors the ability to observe, validate and quickly improve artificial intelligence models 

  • Talkdesk AI Trainer enables enterprises to successfully resolve more cases through automation, which, in turn, improves accuracy, decreases the cost per case and increases customer satisfaction
  • Talkdesk AI Trainer empowers enterprises to upskill their agents to become artificial intelligence (AI) expert trainers, leveraging product and customer knowledge – signifying a bold move into the future of work, where agents are empowered to join the era of AI
  • The new addition to Talkdesk AI portfolio moves company one step further in its vision to automate 80 per cent of customer interactions

Talkdesk, Inc., the cloud contact centre for innovative enterprises, launched Talkdesk AI Trainer, the first human-in-the-loop (HITL) tool for contact centres. While most artificial intelligence (AI) systems require the employment of highly specialised data scientists, the powerful simplicity of Talkdesk AI Trainer allows agents with domain knowledge to improve the AI models autonomously. As a result, enterprises can successfully resolve more cases through automation, which, in turn, improves accuracy, decreases the cost per case and increases customer satisfaction.

Human-in-the-loop systems – in which humans provide information and knowledge for AI training – are essential for many applications and the ongoing maturation of AI in the contact centre. Talkdesk AI Trainer is the first HITL tool to be included in the operational flow of contact centres. Within Talkdesk AI Trainer, dashboards display the performance of each AI model and indicate where each model needs additional training. An easy-to-use interface allows non-technical staff with a domain or business expertise to improve automation performance. 

‘By lowering the barrier to AI adoption in contact centres, Talkdesk AI Trainer is revolutionising the way companies implement, maintain and customise their AI models for automation’, said Charyana Kannan, chief product officer, Talkdesk. ‘Enterprises no longer need to hire highly specialised data scientists to program their machine learning models. With AI Trainer, enterprises become autonomous by leveraging their internal customer service subject matter experts – agents and supervisors – to embed knowledge into their existing AI architecture. Talkdesk AI Trainer signifies a bold move into the future of work, where agents are empowered to join the era of AI.’

Talkdesk AI Trainer moves Talkdesk one step further in its quest to automate 80 per cent of customer interactions. To reach 80 per cent automation, machine learning models such as intent detection, sentiment detection and speech-to-text need to improve continuously over time. However well a model performs in the lab, its performance drops precipitously once it hits real customer data. Therefore, machine learning models need to be constantly re-trained using human assistance to keep pace. Talkdesk AI Trainer is baked into the Talkdesk platform and can be used by anyone to re-train their machine learning models for the purpose of increased efficiency. 

‘AI has game-changing potential but AI systems are not perfect. Human-in-the-loop AI training can fill in the gaps that machines might miss’, said Zeus Kerravala, founder and principal analyst, ZK Research. ‘In this new AI era, Talkdesk continues to deliver state-of-the-art products that will decrease cost and improve CX.’

Talkdesk’s vision of reaching 80 per cent automation is bolstered by its AI and automation products. These range from self-service tools – Virtual Agent Voice and Virtual Agent Digital – through to agent empowerment tools, including Agent Assist, Screen Recording and Quality Management. Customer insight tools include Customer Feedback Management and Speech Analytics, which feature prominently in Talkdesk’s suite of AI-enabled products.     

The launch of Talkdesk AI Trainer comes during a period of unprecedented growth and momentum for Talkdesk. Since its inception in 2011, Talkdesk has grown to be one of the most recognisable names in the contact centre industry. Talkdesk has been recognised as a Leader by Gartner in the inaugural multi-regional 2020 Magic Quadrant for Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS), named a Leader in the 2020 Forrester Wave for CCaaS, named to the 2020 Forbes Cloud 100 list and recently secured $143 million in Series C funding, increasing the company’s valuation to more than $3 billion.

Talkdesk is revolutionising the customer service market with Talkdesk CX Cloud, the industry’s first and only modern, global end-to-end customer experience solution. By combining enterprise performance at scale with consumer simplicity, CX Cloud allows companies to easily adapt contact centre operations to the evolving needs of support and sales teams and their end-customers, resulting in increased productivity, customer satisfaction and cost-saving. Talkdesk CX Cloud offers a dynamic customer experience platform powered by artificial intelligence (AI), a white-glove approach to comprehensive business services and simple, seamless integration capabilities with more than 60 business systems, including the deepest Salesforce integration. Talkdesk CX Cloud sets a new benchmark for the contact centre solutions market with enterprise scalability, security and reliability, backed by the industry’s only 100% uptime Service Level Agreement.