Bridging the gap in conversational AI

Customer-oriented chatbots are mostly designed for an English-speaking market, but Defined.ai founder and CEO Daniela Braga is changing this, starting with a centre of excellence for Portuguese-language AI.

Conversational AI – sophisticated chatbots used for everything from processing orders to online triage – is a boon to businesses looking to provide 24/7 availability, personalisation and scalability to their end users. Rather than being thought of as a technology that replaces human jobs, it can automate tasks such as scheduling appointments or answering FQAs.

According to Daniela Braga, the problem is that almost all conversational AI products are developed for English-speaking parts of the world, leaving other countries behind.

“The big five tech companies are mainly addressing the top 15 GDP countries by ranking, leaving around 2,000 languages in the world
that are not addressed, [and they] do not have any plans to be addressed anytime soon,” claimed Daniela.

The CEO has sights set on those who would benefit from investment in conversational AI in Portugal. After all, Portuguese is the sixth most spoken language in the world.

Image: Web Summit

Portugal as a European centre of excellence for AI

To this end, Daniela recently announced the intention to develop a centre of excellence for AI in Portugal, referring to it as building
the “Netflix of AI data for builders and of models for users”.

This centre has its roots in conversations that Defined.ai initiated with the Portuguese government in 2019 to address what Daniela referred to as the gap in AI development in Europe compared to the US. The CEO proposed that Portugal could be a hub for AI development due to its talented workforce and attractive ecosystem.

In 2020, Covid-19 further highlighted the need for technology to improve customer service interactions, particularly in the public sector, explained Daniela.

A winning consortium to tackle customer service bottlenecks

With the support of the government and the EU, Defined.ai has launched a three-year program, Accelerat.ai, with a budget of €30.5 million, of which the government is co-funding 75 percent.

The programme aims to create 150 full-time jobs in Portugal and develop conversational AI technology in Portuguese, with more European languages to follow.

Daniela said it is a “winning consortium” that includes the top Portuguese universities working on AI, renowned system integrators, and NOS, the largest communications company in the country.

The goal is to enable the provision of 24/7 responses to customer inquiries across the public sector, and companies in the energy, insurance, banking, healthcare and telco industries.

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Main image of Daniela Braga, founder and CEO of Defined.ai, at Web Summit 2022 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal: Ben McShane/Web Summit (CC BY 2.0)