Google boosts its machine learning capabilities with new enhancements

Internet giant Google has introduced enhancements to its machine learning capabilities and Dialogflow Enterprise Edition and has also instituted a new solution called Contact Center AI, Fei-Fei Li, Google AI’s chief scientist, wrote in a blog post.

Dialogflow is a subsidiary of Google that develops voice and conversational interfaces using natural language processing.

Machine learning capabilities

Among its machine learning applications, Google earlier this year launched CloudML, which enables businesses with limited machine learning expertise to build high quality, custom artificial intelligence models and enhance products or services. As part of its first CloudML offering, the company introduced AutoML Vision, which uses Google’s Cloud Vision API to detect images. Earlier in the year, it released the feature for its alpha users, and now the solution is in public beta mode, Li wrote in the blog.

Besides using machine learning for image classification, Google has released two new iterations: AutoML Natural Language, which automatically detects text domains based on its customers’ needs, and AutoML Translation, where users can customise translations by uploading translated language on the cloud, the blog post stated.

The chief AI scientist also said that the company was releasing several important updates to its core machine learning APIs. The firm’s Cloud Vision API now recognises handwriting, supports additional file types (PDF and TIFF) and product searches. Li also said that it could identify where an object is located within an image.

"We’re also launching improvements to Cloud Text-to-Speech, such as multilingual access to voices generated by DeepMind WaveNet technology and the ability to optimize for the type of speaker from which your speech is intended to play. And in Cloud Speech-to-Text, we’re including the ability to identify what language is spoken as well as different speakers in a conversation, word-level confidence scores, and multi-channel recognition so you can record each participant separately in multi-participant recordings," she added.

Dialogflow and Contact Center AI

The internet giant also added enhancements to its chatbot development platform DialogFlow saying that it has benefitted several call centre or service centre employees.

The solution has been used by developers across various industries and to enhance its capabilities so that it can improve efficiencies. While Dialogflow provides speech recognition through Cloud Speech-to-Text, Google has added new features like Text to Speech capability via DeepMind’s WaveNet and the Dialogflow Phone Gateway for telephony integration, Li wrote in the blog.

The company has also developed a capability, Contact Center AI, for service centres, which includes Dialogflow Enterprise Edition.

As soon as a call is placed, the caller will be greeted by a virtual agent that answers queries. If the agent is unable to service a query, it is then passed on to a human representative. The agent then supports the representative by providing him or her with relevant information. This is done by using Dialogflow’s Knowledge Connectors, which accesses a company's knowledge base.

Some of Google’s Contact Center AI partners include Appian, Chatbase, Cisco, Five9, Genesys, Mitel, Quantiphi, RingCentral, Twilio, UiPath, Upwire, and Vonage.