Sticking AI in your company name seems to be as quick at raising...

Sticking AI in your company name seems to be as quick at raising cash as doing an ICO at present.  I don't like to see good people lose money because of pointless hype that seems to be in abundance here so I'll just list a bunch real facts (all cited from reputable sources but feel free to google for more) from the industry titans so you can at least be informed about the current "virtual assistant" industry, the major players and what is & is not possible today.

Firstly - Building "virtual assistants" or chatbots is now as easy as setting up an ebay store.  A few clicks and you're up and running.  Here are the top 3 platforms available today:

Manychat & Chatfuel - These are easy to use platforms for non-coders that are free to use. These allow anyone to build a complex text based chatbot on Facebook Messenger and webchat that includes decision logic and natural language understanding AI. With an API that enables easy integration with 3rd party systems

Dialogflow - This is an easy to use platform for non-coders that is free to use and backed by Google. These allow anyone to build a complex voice based chatbot on amazon alexa, google home and Microsoft cortana, as well as a number of other text platforms like skype/sms/etc that includes decision logic and natural language understanding AI. With an API that enables easy integration with 3rd party systems

So with the above in mind would you need a specialist like FGO to build a chatbot to service your customers when your internal customer service team knows the content and could quickly build a useful "virtual assistant" to handle the bulk of the common questions?

Do the above platforms still look too hard to use or you've got a ton of FAQ's that need to be answered?  Why not just copy & paste it into Microsoft's QnA Maker... its free and anyone can do it!

https://qnamaker.ai/ - Want to build a bot to answer your customers or employees frequently asked questions?  Its as easy as copy and paste with Microsoft's QnA Maker

What about the data security and privacy requirements that enterprise customers need, that would need a specialist like FGO to build a custom solution?  Nope...

Data Privacy/Security - AWS, Microsoft and Google all offer API's within a customers private cloud hosting on those platforms where data will not leave that private zone.  So if its sensitive data you can secure it just like you would your other cloud data. AWS even has a "top secret" location you can run your private cloud in if your data needs that level of protection.

What about the "AI in a box"?

All of the large enterprises are moving to cloud based services like AWS, Google and Microsoft as no one wants the cost and hassle of running a data centre anymore.  Enterprise server sales declined 4.6% (IDC) year on year in 2017, where as cloud IaaS is projected to grow 36.8%, so no one wants a box anymore!

Oh the patents and machine learning IP?

That requires a ton of smart AI researchers, of which there are estimated to be only 300,000 globally!  This means all the big tech companies are paying top dollar (~$160k USD + bonuses/perks), so why would they work for a small aussie startup when they can come out of uni and get to work at Google/Facebook/Netflix/etc?  Also Google and others are already building AI that can build other AI better and faster than the expert humans, so they can do more with less expert humans.

Finally Natural Language Generation - This is flat out vapourware!

Every single word that comes out of a "virtual assistant" today has been written/programmed by a human.  All those AI are doing is reciting content that was created by a human in some way (eg: say the current temperature).  The best experts are still focused on getting the computers to understand what humans are saying, not just recognise our words but understand our intent with them.  Eg: "Hot" can mean temperature, sexy, stolen, spicy, etc... but its meaning is based on context.  If the "virtual assistant" thinks you want a sexy pizza instead of a spicy pizza, then you're in for an odd night.  This is still a big challenge for the AI experts, which is why no one is focused too much on NLG yet.  Those experts that are attempting NLG are seeing some worthless results to date... "He began to eat hermione's family" is an AI's attempt to write a new harry potter book!

So I hope you're now a little more informed on the current state of play from the industry leaders around virtual assistants or chatbots as they are commonly called now.

Please invest your money wisely and always do your own research.

P.S. I hold no shares, have no interest in FGO at all and I'm just an annoyed techy that hates BS like what these people are saying getting traction.