The Conversational Interaction (CI) Conference was held in San Jose, CA, from April 12 to 13, 2022. It was organized by Bill Meisel’s TMA Associates and LUI News (Language User Interface) in conjunction with AVIOS (Audio Visual Input Output Society), a non-profit speech technology professional society. The CI2022 conference resumed after a two-year hiatus and presented an exciting mix of presentations across the speech technology and artificial intelligence (AI) spectrum. Past CI conferences held the sentiment that speech is here to stay, but this is now indisputable as many companies demonstrated real speech solutions infused with AI. While there is still a gulf between what is possible and what is being used in real-world applications, we have come a long way from when the initial CI conference was called Mobile Voice. This year, the focus on voice user interfaces and the breadth of presentations and discussions at the show highlighted the change. Conversational AI can be used by businesses to deliver the following types of customer care: • FAQs – allow customers to attain answers to frequently asked questions quickly • Personal information – examples include finding flight information, account balances, or available inventory • Complete full transactions – enable customers to buy or sell products and services • Hyper-personalization – delivers personalized customer care with access to a holistic customer view Why is it Important to Invest in Conversational AI Now The CI Conference had a solid audience of thought leaders comprising vendors, customers, and industry analysts. In the COVID-19 pandemic era, the use of conversational AI has accelerated as the need for automation has amplified. This is evident from the number of real-world use cases presented throughout the event of companies that use AI and speech technologies to automate and bring intelligence to conversations. The conference kicked off with Bill Meisel moderating the keynote panel, What's the Status of Conversational Technology Today and Where Are We Heading. When moderating her panel, Best Practices in Building Conversational Applications, Nancy Jamison, Senior Research Director at Frost & Sullivan, pointed out that the industry is only as good as its worst user interface. Developing and incorporating best practices is critical to the industry moving forward, replacing outdated interactive voice response (IVR), and driving conversational AI application adoption. Following best practices is particularly important due to the flourishing development of increasingly capable and intelligent AI and speech-powered self-service solutions. Frost & Sullivan's 2022 IT Decision-Maker (ITDM) Survey found that self-service solutions (conversational AI, chatbots, and IVR) will be the top channel for investment (Figure 1). While this trend was ramping up before COVID-19, the pandemic accelerated investments. Digital natives already accustomed to mobile and online self-service used self-service even more, and those reluctant before the pandemic gravitated to digital options to expedite interactions. For many companies, customers now prefer self-service to live agent interactions. Because live agents can cost companies 24 to 48 times as much1, improving operational efficiency by implementing self-service customer channels promises an enormous return on investment (ROI). This insight explores the successes and challenges of implementing conversational AI today and provides end customers with issues to consider in their purchase decision-making process. Author: Alpa Shah