Money might make the world go around, but it’s still a subject that many people are uncomfortable talking about. We know that salary transparency is essential if we’re to overcome gender and cultural bias within the workplace, but while we still struggle to discuss salary with our colleagues, surely it’s a subject we should discuss freely with employers and recruiters? Well, no actually. Experts are in agreement that while salary transparency is essential in the workplace, when it comes to the recruitment process, discussing salary is a big no no.

It’s easy to assume that the Great Resignation and the subsequent struggle companies are facing when it comes to finding talent has made it easier to throw a figure on the table and expect a company to match it, but the opposite is true. Some recruiters believe that showing your financial hand too soon can result in a lower offer, especially if you’re moving industries and haven’t done your research. Like a poker game, you don’t want to show your hand too soon.

While statistics show that on average 70% of U.S. companies plan on implementing salary increases this year, new hires are gaining an average 10% salary increase when moving companies. The fact remains if you want to secure the best offer, you need to be smart when answering the salary history question.

Why is this? Because it’s not just workers who are facing a harsh winter — rising inflation and cost of living increases are also impacting employers and getting the best talent for the least amount of money is their primary aim in the current market. What can you do? Use the deflection of the question as a way to showcase your communication and negotiation skills while holding space for the best offer. Check out our top tips below.

Don’t fudge the answer

Prepare your answer to the salary question ahead of time, and be prepared to state why you don’t want to discuss figures prior to an offer. Fudging the answer or being vague in your response is off-putting to an employer, you want to show that you’re able to communicate your point of view in an articulate and professional manner. Explain that you’d rather have a full understanding of the role before discussing salary or state that you’re aware of industry standards and you would expect something similar.

Answer with a question

Don’t be afraid to answer the salary question with a question. When asked what your salary expectation is you can ask what the salary range for the role is. That’s a polite and professional response and requires the hiring manager to share financial information first. Every company wants to get the best talent for the lowest salary, and sharing your financial history first gives the employer the upper hand.

Do your research

What can you do if you’re leveling up or going for a new role after gaining extra training or education so you are hoping for a large bump? Don’t lie, but do your research to ensure your offer matches industry standards for experts at your level. So instead of saying you were paid X in your previous role when you were paid Y, say that you know other employees in a similar role with your skillset are paid X and that figure would match your salary expectations for this position.

Open up the conversation

Open up the conversation to include more than just salary range. Explain that at this stage in your career you’re interested in the entire package and that benefits such as healthcare and pension contributions as well as non-financial perks such as hybrid working or staff equity opportunities matter to you. This is a great way to bulk up your compensation package when the salary range doesn’t quite match your expectation and show that you are able to think in a creative way.

If you’re interested in testing the market, there are dozens of companies hiring on the VentureBeat job board. We’ve selected three great options below but make sure to explore all opportunities.

Apple

The tech giant is constantly looking for talent at all levels and is currently hiring for a number of roles based in its Seattle HQ as well as a number of remote roles. Opportunities with Apple currently exist across software engineering with positions available for cloud designers and data managers. Check out all available opportunities with Apple.

CrowdStrike

CrowdStrike is a global cybersecurity company which uses cloud-native platforms to protect people and businesses while online. They are currently recruiting for a number of fully remote roles, including software engineers, security analysts and data scientists. Browse all available opportunities at CrowdStrike.

MoneyGram

Operating within the fintech sector, MoneyGram is hiring for a number of engineering roles based across the U.S. with remote opportunities available. MoneyGram currently has 150 million customers across the globe with a staff of over 2,500. Explore all vacant positions at MoneyGram.

Browse all available roles on the VentureBeat job board.

Ideas are crucial for spurring innovations in products and services. One such innovative leader is Heena Purohit, who plays a major role in providing teams with a framework for maturing their ideas into products for customers. 

Analytics India Magazine interacted with Purohit, head of product at IBM. She is the product lead at IBM’s internal incubator program, which enables IBMers to bring innovative ideas and solutions to the real world. Purohit founded ‘AI for Her’ — a 501(c)(3) non-profit organisation on a mission to bring more women and gender minorities into AI. By reducing the AI diversity gap, it helps to build AI systems that are fair and unbiased.

“A typical day for me involves working with various venture teams that deal with emerging technologies and advising them on their product strategy and execution. This includes tasks such as designing and helping teams execute experiments to ensure the venture would be a viable business for IBM, coaching teams on product thinking or, if needed, rolling up my sleeves and supporting the teams in building customer collateral, lead customer/user interviews, and support sales execution.”

Transforming ideas into products 

Purohit says that no two days are alike at work, especially since each venture team is different and is solving a unique customer problem in a distinct way. “And that’s the most fun part of my job!”

She says, “My program is open for IBMers around the world, providing an opportunity to surface and test the best ideas across IBM. This helps in facilitating a culture of innovation and intrapreneurship within the company, while helping IBM build and launch the next generation of products, faster.” She adds that for many teams submissions are ideas and technologies they’ve been working on for years. Being selected in the program finally gives them the opportunity to put their experiments to work and see if they’re actually viable.

Implementing AI in product management

In her initial years at IBM, Purohit built AI solutions for industrial customers driving the strategy, product management and design to help manufacturing clients. She holds an undergraduate degree in telecommunications engineering from the University of Mumbai, where she built solutions involving IoT data/sensors. She also holds a double-major MBA from the University of Notre Dame. “So during my MBA, I came across a brand-new business that IBM was launching (Watson IoT), I applied and was selected for a product management internship role in the unit.”

Purohit says, like many others, she fell into AI following her interests. “While IoT sensors were a disruptive way to get more data than ever, I felt gravitated towards the part where you analyse the data – from IoT sensors, or other structured and unstructured data – to unlock new insights. I was fascinated by how AI/ML technologies enabled us to do that in new ways.” 

She said her AI journey began during this period, where she had the opportunity to launch and scale vertical AI solutions for industrial customers. The experience gave insights into having a firsthand look at the opportunities and challenges that customers are facing in adopting AI across the company. Having worked with some of the most brilliant AI minds at the company, Purohit says that her passion for emerging AI technologies and solving key business problems only grew.

‘You don’t have to be a data scientist to understand or benefit from AI’

Having worked with several customers and mentees to help them adopt AI or get into AI roles, Purohit shares one of her biggest learnings, “You don’t have to be a data scientist to understand or benefit from AI. This is also freeing because as AI technologies get more and more accessible, it helps bring more diverse voices in AI discussions, getting them to help build an AI-powered future.”

More specifically to her experience working on emerging technologies, Heena says that this is a great time to build a product. “To get started, think about all the tasks you do in your personal and professional life. Identify the manual/repetitive/mundane tasks and think if AI can help you Strengthen that experience. If the answer is yes, try it out. It’s very likely that there’s a no-code AI tool out there for you to prototype this. This way, you’re not only dipping your toes in AI but also gaining the experience in using AI tools, so that you can then move on to solving bigger and better problems with AI.”

Purohit has been on a mission to make AI more accessible and help bring more people into the AI industry. She adds that this has manifested into the decisions made around which products to lead. Outside her current role at IBM, Purohit has spoken at over 20 events on the topic, and been published in over 15 books and articles. The tech leader has actively judged AI solutions at 6 hackathons. “The ‘AI for Her’ content on getting into AI and AI literacy has impacted over 12,000 students. And this feels like just the beginning.”

Find your tribe of cheerleaders and supporters

Purohit shares that across all channels, the biggest takeaways have come from the questions since they provide insight into the pain points that people are facing today. “These challenges often don’t pertain to the technical skills gap but around the mindset shift. And that’s why in most of the sessions I’ve delivered, we end up touching upon subjects such as imposter syndrome, knowing your worth, and finding your tribe of cheerleaders and supporters,” she said.

She credits IBM for providing an incredible network of mentors that inspired and gave her opportunities to grow. “Perfect segway from the mindset shift because I faced that as I moved up in my career trajectory, too. It’s important to acknowledge that one doesn’t get to where they are without the help of others. I’m grateful for the support I’ve received, and it’s also why I feel passionately about paying it forward.”

Purohit was recognised as one of the Top 11 ‘Women AI Leaders’ at RISE 2020 and Datatech Vibe’s 2021 ‘Top Women Leaders In AI To Watch’. She was awarded the University’s Alumni Award in 2019 for her impact on women in technology initiatives. “I feel incredibly thankful for both recognitions and am honoured to be mentioned alongside many of the women I admire. I want to talk about how this happened. At the start of the pandemic, when everyone was in strict lockdown, I missed my break room conversations where I’d catch up with my colleagues and geek out on AI. I raised this on one of my favourite Women in Tech Facebook groups and turns out, many other women missed this, too.”

Purohit says that this led to the establishment of ‘AI for Her’. “This gave me the confidence to take this further and we’re now a 501c3 nonprofit on a mission to reduce the gender gap in the AI industry today and amplify the message that everyone can get into AI. We’ve been brewing some even more exciting things this year and looking forward to the launch!”

Take Five

1.    Favourite thing in the ML/AI industry today & why? I’m incredibly excited about foundation models. Having tested various foundation models, I can attest that not only are they better than anything else I’ve used, but also they’re equally flawed. So, while I know we have a way to go before foundation models become usable, I’m excited by how they could transform many areas of our lives today

2.    Top three apps you frequently use: YouTube, Elevate, and Reddit

3.    Favourite book on AI: Weapons of Math Destruction 

4.    Favourite podcast in AI and ML: I prefer non-AI podcasts to bring in more diversity to my day-to-day life. I love Exponent (Ben Thomson’s podcast on tech business analysis) and Acquired (Great storytelling and startup analysis)

5.    What would you have been doing if you weren’t a Product Head? I would certainly still be in tech. But as a consultant or a Product Owner

6.    How do you define your leadership style? I strive to lead with empathy. Since the pandemic, this has become more important to me than ever  

Dear Brainiac,

I have a question about why IBM chose to build an $8 million campus in 1956 in Rochester, which had a population of about 30,000 people. The late state lawmaker David Bishop wrote an article in 2011 that said it was the wartime friendship between the IBM CEO and a Rochester pilot that spurred Big Blue to choose the Med City over Madison, Wisconsin.

That sounds like a local legend. Is there proof that a friendship brought a major Fortune 500 company and thousands of jobs to Rochester?

Looking for Big Blue’s clues

Dear clueless,

I have heard many versions of the tale of why IBM chose Rochester. Personally, I think the version that Dave Bishop wrote is my favorite. It is a fantastic story of friendship transforming a community.

Unfortunately, it might not be completely accurate.

Here's the basic background. Thomas Watson, Jr., the son of IBM founder and future CEO, was a pilot in World War II. He flew missions with Leland (Lee) Fiegel of Rochester who was also a pilot. In 1942, they flew to Moscow for a secret mission, which later resulted in Fiegel being awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross medal for "meritorious achievement.”

Post Bulletin file photo

I reached out to IBM to see if there was ever a recorded instance of Watson saying his connection to Fiegel drove the decision to build in Rochester.

“We have not been able to confirm this story. Yes, Thomas Watson, Jr. and Leland (Lee) Fiegel did fly on bomber missions during the war. And yes, Watson maintained a relationship with the Fiegel family following Lee’s death. However, we have not uncovered any corroboration to support the family’s assertion that Watson chose Rochester as an homage to his war buddy,” according to a response by IBM’s Lorie Luedke.

IBM historians went on to flesh out what is documented about the decision to build in Rochester.

“At the time of the announcement in 1956, the health and vibrancy of the city’s civic institutions were cited by IBM as the official reason. Decades later, in a 1989 speech at the Mayo Clinic, Watson, Jr. singled out the hospital as the chief reason,” wrote IBM’s archivist.

In that 1989 speech, Watson is quoted as saying, “When it became time to build an IBM plant out in that general area of the country, and nobody around the table had any particular idea where to go in that circle that included Lone Rock and some of your other interesting towns, I spoke up for the Mayo Clinic which accounts for the IBM plant being in that area today.”

A 1958 Post Bulletin article mentioned another reason: “Reporters were interested in why a Midwest site was chosen for this plant and how Rochester was picked. Watson explained that the company realized that it was awkward and dangerous for the customers of IBM to have its production concentrated in the East, so the executive plotted on a map the center of 12 Midwest states and swung a pencil in a radius 200 miles, which included Rochester, and then had an independent survey firm investigate about 80 cities for a possible site,” reads a Sept. 30, 1958 Post Bulletin article.

Contributed

Later in the article, Watson explained, “We thought Rochester wanted an industry and it seemed the sort of place where our people could find more than the average intellectual challenge. We thought it was a very logical place to build a plant.”

Bishop’s account states that Fiegel, who was based in Washington, D.C., as a U.S. Army flight trainer, flew to New York in 1948 to meet with Watson. The return to Washington proved to be the last flight for Fiegel, who survived so many battles in World War II.

Fiegel’s plane crashed in Maryland killing him and two others. Newspaper articles in 1948 quote witnesses as saying an engine fell off the plane and it “disintegrated.”

The tragic death of his friend did come up when IBM announced the plans to build in Rochester. “Watson said that he was delighted his firm had decided on the site here (Rochester) because of his association with the Fiegel family,” reported a Sept. 27, 1958, Post Bulletin article.

The bottom line is that neither the archivists at IBM and Mayo Clinic nor the Rochester Public Library’s amazing reference librarian Susan Hansen or even the Answer Man's crack investigative team could find definitive proof that the Watson/Fiegel friendship brought IBM to Rochester.

It's still a good story.

Send questions to Answer Man at answerman@postbulletin.com .

Q. I have a 2008 Toyota Highlander, when do I need to change the antifreeze in my car’s radiator. Someone told me that it’s not necessary to flush the radiator and change the antifreeze. That doesn’t sound right to me, please advise.

A. Toyota doesn’t have a specific recommendation except for check the antifreeze level every 30,000 miles. On the severe maintenance schedule Toyota recommends coolant change at 100,000 miles. For many driver’s that would be every seven years. Over time the antifreeze can lose its ability to protect the engine against corrosion and loses its ability to lubricate the water pump. If this was my car and the coolant has never been replaced, I would replace it.

Q. I have a car that is eight years old but is not needed any more. Rather than sell it, I would like to donate it. The problem is I’m not sure what is a charity and what isn’t, can you help clarify this, so I make the right decision.

A. Many of the country’s major charities accept car donations, including Habitat for Humanity, Goodwill, Make-A-Wish, the Salvation Army and the Ronald McDonald house, to name a few. Another good source is www.cardonationwizard.com This organization verifies the charity and can help you through the donation process including the paperwork. One other possible avenue for donations are museums (they sell the cars to support the museums and also technical high schools and colleges. The Vo-tech schools that I am involved with are always looking for vehicles for teaching purposes.

Q. I have a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse Spider and it needs a new shifter cable. The repair shop can’t locate one anywhere. What do I do I don’t want to get rid of the car?

A. The repair shop might be trying the Mitsubishi dealer or local parts store. Perhaps online parts sites or even online salvage yard listing including Ebaymotors may offer some success. The other option, which is more time consuming is removing the cable and having a new cable fabricated. I have found that with enough time, talent and budget just about anything can be repaired.

Q. Every year for the past five years, the air conditioner in my 15-year-old Buick quits working. I have it recharged in the beginning of summer and by fall it blows warm air. For the last few years, the mechanic has added a leak detector and every time he checks with the his special eyeglasses and light and he can’t find the leak. I would like to get this issue fixed permanently.

A. Since there is a leak and the mechanic is checking for visual leaks with ultraviolet light they can only look for leaks they can see. The evaporator is not visible since it sits in the plenum (heater)box and based on the information you provided; the leak is most likely the evaporator.

Q. I have a 1993 Chevrolet Corvette with the LT1 engine. It runs great for 15-20 minutes then dies. Sometimes will turn over and fire up again briefly but not always. It was towed home the last two times out. Several mechanics have looked at the problem and feel it is the “Opti-park” which they all say is the Achilles heel of this LTI engine. None of them want to tackle the job to replace. What is my best way to pursue replacement and get this car back on the road?

A. Your shop is probably correct, some vehicles with Opti-Spark ignition can get moisture in the system which causes carbon tracking and misfiring. The distributor is located under the water pump. It is a half day job to replace the distributer cap. If the distributer is faulty the part is nearly $1000 last time I looked. The other problem is the Opti-Spark service kit has been discontinued by GM. There are aftermarket parts, but some requite updating the timing cover for a proper fit. The final option is to replace the Opti-Spark system completely with one that uses a cam and crankshaft sensor. This is one source http://www.torqhead.com Perhaps talk to the local Corvette club and see what other owners can recommend.

Q. I have a 2006 Solara coupe that I love, but I just found out it has a leak in the trunk. It looks like some mold has started on the contents. How can I find where the leak is and fix it? Is this a job for an auto body shop? How do they find it, do they put a small person in the trunk?

A. If the car has a moonroof check the drain, if you take out all of the padding there is a blue plastic line that runs from the moonroof into the trunk and exits out of the rear wheel-well. Other possibilities are the rear window leaking, poor seals on the trunk lid or even the taillights. If the car was in a crash, a body seal could have not been repaired properly. A body shop, or general repair shop could certainly take a look for the problem. In some cases, they may call in someone who specializes in wind and water leaks. Sometimes a technician will fill the trunk with synthetic smoke and see if there is a leak. There are also ultrasonic leak detectors and sometimes out of desperation you crawl into the trunk with a flashlight and have someone spray water over the car.

Q. I was looking at motor oil at a big auto parts store recently and I keep seeing this label Dexos and Dexos-2. I read it is for GM cars, is this Dexos specified oil any better than non-Dexos oil? Can Dexos oil used in my Volkswagen?

A. I believe in using the oil that is recommended by the vehicle manufacturer. General Motors requires Dexos oil because they believe it has enhanced lubrication capabilities. In addition, it was specified to help with fuel economy and vehicle emissions. Dexos engine oil is designed by General Motors engineers and is intended specifically for their engines. Volkswagen and many European vehicles recommend a specific type of synthetic oil. The oil for your Volkswagen is typical labeled Euro-Blend or EuroSpec.

Q. I have a 2018 Honda Pilot with 23,000 miles on it and a new battery. I have installed a second-generation Version HUM with Google Assistant built in. Even though the battery is new I constantly receive a message from my HUM that my battery is low. Especially if I do not drive it for one or two days. Is this normal? Usually, it is saying the battery is at 11.8 volts. Is this normal?

A. I don’t know much about the Gen 2 Version HUM, I do remember the older versions. Typically, the battery voltage studying of a 12-volt battery should be at least 12.6 volts. Seeing a voltage studying less than 12 volts indicates the battery is discharged. Although I would want to test the battery voltage directly at the battery not through the diagnostic connector. The diagnostic connector that your Verizon HUM connects to was never designed for constant monitoring but rather scan-tool diagnosis. I would start with fully charging the battery with a battery charger at a slow rate until the battery state of charge is at least 12.6 volts. I would disconnect the HUM device and drive the car normally for a few weeks and retest the battery. If the voltage is low, the charging system or possible parasitic drain is a problem. If the voltage is normal the HUM unit is causing a problem.

Got a car question, email the Car Doctor for a personal reply. jpaul@aaanortheast.com

Also see: What is Artificial Intelligence 

From healthcare to retail to entertainment and everywhere in between, more and more businesses are turning to AI chatbots to fill customer service roles. 

Grand View Research values the global chatbot market at $525.7 million in 2021 and expects it to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25.7% from 2022 to 2030. With a market this large and only growing, it can be difficult for businesses looking to find the right chatbot solution for them.

Dozens of chatbot services and platforms are on the market, but we’ve gone through and found some of the top AI chatbots to provide companies a head start on finding the right chatbot for them.

Why Use Chatbots?

There are a few reasons for chatbots’ rise in prominence. First, it’s a cost-saving measure, as businesses won’t need to hire and train as many employees if they can simply automate the processes those employees would work in. It also allows businesses to collect data from customers in real-time to identify their preferences and pain points.

Also, chatbots are scalable, allowing expanding companies to more easily handle an increased load on their customer support infrastructure and other processes. This can let businesses maintain satisfactory service without breaking the bank.

Challenges of Using Chatbots in Customer-Facing Roles

There are, however, some concerns to note before using chatbots in customer-facing roles. According to a study on automation in the workplace by global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, automation works best in roles with predictable, repetitive tasks with as little variation as possible.

This preference for predictable work is why AI can be great for things like transaction processing or employee onboarding, where it can stick to a script as much as possible. While this can generally be true for customer-facing roles, human interaction is an unpredictable process, and a number of issues can crop up.

If, for example, a customer doesn’t phrase their issue correctly or has a unique problem, chatbots can’t really do much beyond route the customer to a human employee, more or less acting as another frustrating barrier for your customers to get the help they need.

Additionally, AI isn’t ready to read emotions through a text chat or a voice call yet, and the robotic nature of the responses can feel cold and impersonal to those who interact with it. In a customer support role where the people making contact are likely to be frustrated, angry, or anxious, this can lead to those negative emotions heightening and worsening their overall experience and potentially the experience of your human customer support staff.

When selecting a chatbot solution, it’s best to make sure this sort of automation is what your business needs to provide excellent service to your customers while freeing up your employees from more repetitive work.

Also see: Top AI Software 

How to Select the Right Chatbot for Your Business

Also see: The Future of Artificial Intelligence

Top AI Chatbots 2022

Zendesk Answer Bot

Zendesk’s suite of customer support tools and platforms can be bolstered by its Answer Bot. Answer Bot is a customer support chatbot designed to handle simple low-priority tickets, freeing up human employees to handle higher-priority, more complex tickets.

However, even for chatbots, Answer Bot can be a little rudimentary. It can suggest articles for customers to browse based on its available content library, but these suggestions might not be the most accurate response. More than anything, Answer Bot is a way to take a couple of tickets off of customer support staff’s hands.

If Zendesk’s own chatbot isn’t the perfect fit, the platform’s marketplace also boasts a number of partner integrations from developers like Ibenta, Certainly, Zowie, and Haptik.

Because of its native integration to popular customer support software like Zendesk, Answer Bot is the best fit for companies that already use Zendesk products and are looking to offload a few low-priority customer support tickets from human staff.

Tidio

One of the most enticing aspects of Tidio is its no-code development feature. With Tidio, users can create and train chatbots without the need of extensive coding knowledge. It accomplishes this through templates and a drag-and-drop builder tool, optimized for ease of use.

Once deployed, the chatbots can be programmed with prewritten answers to customer questions to ensure customers get the help they need more quickly.

For helping customers purchase products and services, Tidio can offer product recommendations and even provide prospective customers personalized discounts. If they’re interested, they can immediately place and order through the chatbot, as well.

Overall, Tidio is best for companies looking to develop custom AI without much coding expertise required.

Read More At: The Benefits of Artificial Intelligence

Qualified

Geared for businesses using Salesforce, Qualified’s chatbot, live chat, and conversational marketing platform is perfect for B2B marketing teams and brands looking to increase sales conversions through their website.

Through Qualified, multiple developers can program and code their chatbots at the same time, allowing client companies to create and deploy multiple chatbots simultaneously. These chatbots can provide 24/7 support and marketing. Interested customers can even schedule meetings with human staff through the chatbot.

When the time is right to move on from a chatbot to a human marketing team, the platform provides a smooth transition to screen-sharing and live chat between prospective customers and human employees.

The service isn’t entirely perfect, however. Its user interface (UI) can be a bit unwieldy to use at first, and its pricing model is fairly steep, with the lowest tier being $3,000 per month. This makes Qualified a better choice for midsize to enterprise-level organizations. It might be too expensive for smaller businesses.

Netomi

Another customer support-focused chatbot provider, Netomi’s platform provides natural language understanding (NLU) support to over 100 languages to help companies worldwide resolve customer inquiries more efficiently.

A key feature of Netomi’s chatbot is that it’s designed for scalability and unexpected activity spikes. This makes the platform excellent for organizations that are in the process of expanding or that might experience sudden spikes in customer support requests, such as a software company when it puts out a new update.

The platform’s real-time analytics and knowledge-base integration help make sure the chatbots are choosing the best possible response they can. On top of that, the bot can be deployed across multiple channels, including email, voice chat, and social media.

When it’s time to switch over to human interaction, Netomi’s integrations with platforms like Shopify, Salesforce, Zendesk, and Freshworks make the process easier than it might be otherwise.

Overall, Netomi is the best fit for an expanding business looking for scalable chatbot solutions.

IBM Watson Assistant

One of the titans in the world of AI, IBM’s Watson Assistant platform allows clients to build, develop, and deploy AI chatbots best-suited to their specific needs. The development process is designed for speedy deployment and ease of use, meaning that users will hopefully see faster returns on their investments.

By utilizing collected data from customer conversations, Watson Assistant chatbots can better learn how to resolve customer support tickets on the first try, making the customer support process less stressful and time-consuming for customers.

That said, Watson Assistant offers fewer integrations than some of its competitors, making it a less-optimal choice for those looking to holistically Strengthen their customer support infrastructure. It’s also priced more for enterprise-level clients, meaning that smaller businesses might want to look elsewhere.

Read More At: How to Train Your Chatbot to Be a Recruiting Machine

MobileMonkey

A sales outreach platform, MobileMonkey aims to provide affordable chatbots and sales automation solutions to startups and small businesses. Chatbot setup and implementation is easy to perform, and chat responses are customizable, ensuring that prospective customers are getting responses geared toward converting chats into sales.

While affordable, MobileMonkey’s integration offerings are a little shallow. Users can deploy chatbots to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, email, website chat, and SMS, but users looking for other social media integrations should look elsewhere.

There is also a significant lack of native integration with other SaaS platforms, making it less than ideal for companies trying to sync up data gathered across multiple platforms and departments.

Overall, MobileMonkey is best for small businesses and startups with strong social media presences looking for a cheap AI chatbot solution to capitalize on that presence.

ManyChat

Built for Facebook Messenger, ManyChat allows organizations to more efficiently tap into that market of nearly 3 billion users, according to Statista. This simple chatbot can book appointments, sell products, update customers on their orders, and offer discounts or coupons among other functions.

ManyChat boasts a number of industry-specialized templates with which users can drag-and-drop to create chatbots with features and knowledge bases to suit their needs. Through this, businesses can launch new chatbots in a matter of minutes, with little to no coding required.

These bots can also be integrated with over 1,500 apps, including Shopify, Google Sheets, Zapier, and Stripe.

ManyChat is an excellent fit for companies looking to leverage Facebook Messenger to potentially boost sales and revenue.

Imperson

Using NLP, Imperson’s AI chatbots are designed to read and react to user intent in an attempt to create a more authentic customer experience than other chatbots. These bots can be deployed for a number of functions, such as customer service, marketing, lead generation, sales, and multiplatform engagement.

The firm’s dashboard analytics can also help businesses generate more value and customer engagement from their chatbots by helping companies figure out the best responses to generate sales.

Imperson is a great fit for enterprise-level organizations looking to boost customer engagement through AI chatbots.

Salesforce Einstein

Salesforce offers one of the best CRM platforms on the market, and one of the key reasons for this is the mind-boggling number of integrations available on the platform. Through integrations, businesses can connect a variety of disparate platforms across the entire organization.

One of these integrations is Salesforce’s own Einstein, an AI chatbot solution which can seamlessly work with the entirety of Salesforce’s product offerings. This chatbot can then leverage the data and knowledge base to become a top-flight solution for sales, marketing, commerce, human resources, and so much more.

The main drawback of the bot is that using it requires the Salesforce Service Cloud, meaning it’s not practical for organizations that use any other cloud service provider.

Inbenta

Inbenta’s AI chatbots utilize companies’ preexisting FAQs (frequently asked questions) and knowledge bases to offer customers a powerful 24/7 chat solution. Leveraging company knowledge bases allow Inbenta chatbots to more quickly provide customers with the answers and support they need.

The bots can be launched on company websites and social media alike and boasts a number of integrations, including Zendesk, Salesforce Desk, and Service Cloud. These integrations allow businesses to deploy chatbots as quickly as possible, without needing developers to spend months matching tags and writing answers to questions.

Overall, Inbenta is best for companies looking to link their established knowledge bases with an AI chatbot for 24/7 support.

Also see: The History of Artificial Intelligence 

It’s a pretty safe bet that nobody is going to fill the solar system with soup, out to the orbit of Jupiter. For one thing, that would take a lot of soup—2 x 10 to the 39th power liters, which is also 10 to the 42nd power calories worth, or more energy than the sun has put out in its entire lifetime. So a soupy solar system is not likely to happen anytime soon.

That fact, however, did not stop a five year old girl named Amelia from asking about the possibility on the website xkcd.com, hosted and written by Randall Munroe, 37, the author of 2014’s bestseller What If? and the just-released sequel What If? 2. Since Amelia asked, Munroe answered, devoting the opening chapter of the new book to the matter of what he calls Soupiter. The answer, briefly, is not pretty—involving a soup-based black hole that would swallow up our entire solar system, annihilate everything caught within it, and cut a swath through a not-insignificant part of the Milky Way.

“I loved the specificity of the question,” Munroe says. “I mean, why soup? The questions I get from little kids are always the best, because they’re not being put together by adults, who understand lots of stuff. They’re just sort of pushing concepts together in surprising ways.”

There’s a little bit of Amelia in all of us—and Munroe has made it his mission to keep our curiosity satisfied. What If? 2, like the original, is stuffed with questions that are fanciful in the asking, but perfectly—and playfully—informative in the answering. If a T. Rex were released in New York City, how many humans would it need to eat per day to stay alive? (About half a human daily, or 55,000 calories worth.) Could you eat a cloud? (Maybe, but first you’d have to squeeze out all of the air, and the cloud would have to start out no bigger than a house, since one that size would contain about a liter of water, which is all the human stomach can hold at one time.) How long would it take you to fill an Olympic size swimming pool with your own saliva? (About 8,345 years, given that the average human produces about 500 milliliters of saliva a day.)

The questions throughout What If? 2 are equal parts brilliant, gross, and wonderfully absurd and the answers are thorough, deeply researched, and great fun—not least because they are accompanied by Munroe’s stick-figure artwork. Both books flow naturally—if somewhat circuitously—from Munroe’s earlier life.

A graduate of Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va., Munroe studied physics, math and computer engineering and in his junior and senior years managed to nab himself an internship at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. His work for NASA involved developing 3D visualizations and robot navigation systems for a prototype Mars airplane the Langley engineers were trying to develop.

“My job was to make the robot drive around the lab,” Munroe says, “so I was less thinking about navigating over rocks on Mars and more about dodging chairs and trying not to hit the children of any of the Langley executives.”

The work was stimulating enough—indeed, more stimulating than the time Munroe spent in class back at Christopher Newport, much of which he passed by doodling in the margins of his notebooks. “I wasn’t great at taking notes,” he says. “I would draw stuff as I was listening—inventions I wanted to build or little stick figures running around and having little battles.”

Those scribbles eventually turned into something of a body of work, and ultimately Munroe decided he wanted to share them with the world via his own website. It was the frontier days of the Internet, when domain names were being scooped up by the bushelful and even the most imaginative names he could come up with turned out to have been claimed already. Finally, he decided that he’d have to get by on a string of nonsense letters.

“I didn’t want anything with an O in it because that can be mistaken for a zero,” he says. “And I didn’t want anything with an L because when that’s lowercase it can be mistaken for a one.” That brought him to the perfectly meaningless xkcd.com—a domain he claimed and quickly began filling with scanned-in versions of notebooks full of doodles, which he shared with friends, who then began sharing them with their own friends—and the following for the site began to grow.

Much of the subject matter of the drawings involved math and science, and before long, people began writing in with questions. “They’d ask me things like, ‘Me and my friend have been arguing about whether Superman could dodge a bullet without creating a shock wave,’” Munroe says. “Then they’d add, ‘This doesn’t seem like a question to bother a real scientist about and we both agreed you seemed like a good person to ask.’ Maybe I should have been insulted, but the truth was, they were right and so I would spend like the next six hours researching these questions.” (The answer, by the way, is that a bullet-dodging Superman could indeed create a shock wave—which would be decidedly disruptive to the nearby residents of his home city of Metropolis.)

Munroe found he quite enjoyed the hours he spent answering such fanciful inquiries, so he posted a note on the site soliciting more questions and from those, the original What If? was born. The book became a sensation, translated into 35 languages, and reaching number one on the New York Times bestseller list.

What If? 2 continues in the same spirit, even including another question about a bullet—specifically whether it would be possible to catch one fired straight up if you could somehow be positioned at the exact point at which it reached the peak of its arc and had lost its velocity. (The answer: yes, but it would be hot to the touch so maybe wear a catcher’s mitt.)

Getting playful with science doesn’t mean that Munroe isn’t also serious about science, and he does sometimes despair of our living in an age of scientific illiteracy or at least misinformation—with all manner of spurious beliefs at large concerning vaccines, climate change, the age of the Earth, and more. Some of this he ascribes to mere confusion about what’s true and what’s not, and he hopes his work offers something of a judgment-free zone for people who feel at sea about science.

“No one wants to look like the one person in class who isn’t following what’s going on,” he says. “People tend to think, ‘Oh, I must not be smart enough for this.’ So I think it’s really important to get across the idea that everyone is confused about scientific ideas. The most accomplished scientists and nonscientists—we’re all just trying to figure stuff out, and it’s OK to be confused.”

When Munroe finds himself in a position to debunk misconceptions, he leans on the facts—serving them up as neutrally as possible. “For someone who thinks the Earth is 6,000 years old, I would say, ‘Hey, have you seen this cool paper? It’s about this really neat dig site and it shows how the land shifted and it used to be underground and now it’s above ground.’ That might not lead to a conversion moment, but I find it’s better to engage with people rather than talking down to them.”

But reckoning with such politicized, third-rail subjects is not what takes up most of Munroe’s mind-space. That remains devoted to the brand of fancy that fills What If? 2. If the universe stopped expanding by now, for example, how long would it take you to drive to its edge—assuming you observed a 65 mph speed limit? (4.8 x 10 to the 17th power years, or 35 million times the 13.8 billion years age of the universe so far.) If you were flying blind through the Milky Way, what would be your odds of hitting a star? (Just one in 10 billion—galaxies are mostly empty space.) How many constantly running toasters would it take to heat an average-sized home? (Surprisingly few—only about 20. If you decided to make toast in the process, you’d be going through roughly 30 loaves per hour.)

Do you need any of this information? No. Are you happy—indeed, delighted—to have it? Almost certainly yes. Science isn’t easy, but in Munroe’s capable hands, it surely can be fun.

Write to Jeffrey Kluger at jeffrey.kluger@time.com.

IBM continues to spend millions on buying hybrid cloud companies with the unveiling of its acquisition of engineering consulting specialist Dialexa to boost its cloud charge.

Since IBM CEO Arvind Krishna took the reins in April 2020, IBM has acquired more than 25 companies, including many hybrid cloud businesses.

In February alone, IBM acquired cloud consultant services standout Sentaca, as well as Microsoft Azure consultancy all-star Neudesic—with the two purchases squarely aimed at boosting IBM’s hybrid and multi-cloud services capabilities.

Looking at the company’s purchase of Dialexa, IBM will gain 300 skilled product managers, designers, full-stack engineers and data scientists. Dialexa will become part of IBM’s Consulting business unit, which spearheads the company’s digital product engineering services in the Americas.

“Dialexa’s product engineering expertise, combined with IBM’s hybrid cloud and business transformation offerings, will help our clients turn concepts into differentiated product portfolios that accelerate growth,” said John Granger, senior vice president of IBM Consulting, in a statement.

Krishna: Hybrid cloud a ‘competitive advantage’

Dialexa marks IBM’s sixth purchase in 2022 with the goal of boosting its hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence abilities.

Along with buying Dialexa, Sentaca and Neudesic, IBM has also acquired Randori, an attack surface management cybersecurity specialist that helps protect hybrid cloud environments.

Earlier this year, IBM’s CEO said hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence are top of mind for his company in terms of investment and the future.

“We are integrating technology and expertise—from IBM, our partners and even our competitors—to meet the urgent needs of our clients, who see hybrid cloud and AI as crucial sources of competitive advantage,” Krishna said in March. “And we are ready to be the catalyst of progress for our clients as they pursue the digital transformation of the world’s mission-critical businesses.”

In 2021, IBM’s hybrid cloud revenue jumped 19 percent compared with 2020, comprising 35 percent of its total revenue.

IBM’s acquisition of Dialexa

Based in Dallas and Chicago, Dialexa delivers a suite of digital product engineering services to help customers create transformative products to drive business outcomes.

Dialexa’s 300-strong engineers and skilled IT experts advise and create custom digital products for customers, which include Deere & Company, Pizza Hut U.S. and Toyota Motor North America. Financial terms of the Dialexa deal were not disclosed.

IBM said Dialexa provides deep experience delivering end-to-end digital product engineering services consisting of strategy, design, build, launch and optimization services across cloud platforms including Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.

“Digital product engineering represents the tip of the spear for competitive advantage,” said Dialexa CEO Scott Harper in a statement. “IBM and Dialexa’s shared vision for delivering industry-defining digital products could be a game-changer.”

This article originally appeared at crn.com

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.

Oct 03, 2022 (Alliance News via COMTEX) -- A latest report published by Astute Analytica gives an overview of the current situation of the global Smart Cities Engineering and Construction (E&C) Services Market. The market study’s anticipated years are 2022 to 2030.

The globalSmart Cities Engineering and Construction (E&C) Services Marketheld a market value of USD 106.64 Billion in 2020 and is forecasted to reach USD 453.07 Billion by the year 2030. The market is anticipated to grow at a CAGR of 16.5% during the projected period.

The MarketWatch News Department was not involved in the creation of this content.