Type Private Founder Peter Voss | Founded 2009 | |
Industry call center automation solutions, IVR solutions Headquarters El Segundo, California, USA Key people Tom Lewis, Chief Executive Officer
Peter Voss, Founder
Mike Weston, Chairman of the Board
Tas Dienes, Chief Technology Officer | ||
SmartAction provides artificial intelligence-based voice self-service. SmartAction's Intelligent Voice Automation (IVA) is a hosted IVR platform that uses natural language speech recognition and is based on an object-oriented coding framework. IVA is a cloud-based, hosted service. IVA® handles complex customer experience calls across 12 verticals, providing assistance with numerous call types such as appointment scheduling and rescheduling, delivery status, order placements, and a variety of outbound calls.
Contents
SmartAction was founded by inventor and entrepreneur Peter Voss and is headquartered in El Segundo, CA.
History
Developing artificial intelligence has challenged researchers since at least the 1940s (see History of artificial intelligence). Part of the problem has been the difficulty of defining an adequate theory of intelligence that can serve as a framework to guide hardware implementations. Starting in the early 1990s Voss developed a new theory of intelligence, outlined in the book Artificial General Intelligence. In 2001, Voss founded an R&D startup, Adaptive AI, Inc., to research and develop a prototype artificial general intelligence system based on his theory of intelligence. In 2009 Voss founded Smart Action Company, LLC to commercialize this technology. Born out of Voss' research and development, SmartAction created its first practical application of this new technology focused on the management of inbound and outbound calls for contact centers. Since its inception, SmartAction has continued to develop the technology into a highly specialized and purpose driven AI, identified by the company as Intelligent Voice Automation.
Technology
There are two layers of technology that SmartAction uses in its systems. The first is speech recognition, which enables the system to understand natural language spoken words and phrases. Second is a proprietary artificial intelligence engine used to determine the meaning and intent behind the spoken words, drive the conversation with the caller, and improve over time. A text-to-speech engine enables the system to speak. The AI engine's built-in knowledge and skills also makes development and updates to the system much faster and easier than with older technology.