For the inaugural rankings, HFS analyzed capabilities of 19 service providers in the emerging market for “cognitive assistants,” automated solutions that replace or augment human customer-facing transactions. The report cites Cognizant’s leadership and portfolio of client use cases from its Conversational AI practice. It also cites Cognizant’s investments and acquisitions that have expanded its social sciences and behavioral design expertise to effectively realize its vision for cognitive assistants.
HFS evaluated the service providers on ability to execute, innovation capability and voice of the customer – based on phone interviews with clients, a web survey of 300 enterprise clients from the Global 2000, provider briefings and publicly available information. The Top 10 offer what HFS calls the “triple-A trifecta” of automation, analytics and artificial intelligence. In addition, the Top 10 stand out for their ability to develop solutions that solve business problems using data, neuro-linguistic programming and perceptive capabilities that go beyond typical chatbots or interactive voice response systems.
“Most people are generally more familiar with consumer-focused conversational assistants like Alexa or Siri, but at the business end of the spectrum, enterprise-level cognitive assistants are developing abilities to self-learn, self-remediate and execute on business processes,” said Melissa O’Brien, Research Vice President, Customer Engagement, Retail and Travel Strategies, HFS Research. “These AI-based solutions are poised to significantly impact business operations, leading to more agile, predictive and customer-centric organizations. Cognizant stands out with one of the most well-developed use case portfolios, especially in the area of customer care. They are executing on a vision for cognitive assistants that transforms industries by coupling their technology expertise with social science and experience design.”
“Conversational AI, including enterprise cognitive assistants, is a critical launching pad into richer customer experiences and employee engagement for many organizations. We are helping clients incorporate these automated capabilities into websites, apps and smart devices by applying a human-centered view to the user’s journey and leveraging analytics to understand both motives for contact and expected outcomes,” said Matt Smith, Head of Conversational AI, Cognizant. “Thoughtfully done, and keeping human needs at its center, conversational AI can improve satisfaction, reduce costs and build loyalty. We are pleased HFS has recognized both our capabilities and the outcomes we are delivering to clients by fusing technology expertise with human-centric design.”