Why conversational AI should feel more human and not sound more human

As we spend more and more of our lives online, it’s no wonder that today’s headlines are filled with stories that sound like science fiction plotlines blurring the lines between humans and computers.

Earlier this year, a Google engineer expressed concern about his chatbot model LaMDA had become aware.

Shortly after, Meta’s head of Global Affairs published a long article about the immersive experiences that immersive technology makes possible, depicting a man playing chess with a humanoid hologram – implying that technology can generate and replace that kind of human-to-human experience.

Most recently, the chief scientist for Alexa at Amazon, Rohit Prasad, presented at the company’s conference on machine learning, automation, robotics and aerospace. During his root notehe touched on how “empathy and affect” are key to building trust, which he says is even more important “in these times of the ongoing pandemic, when so many of us have lost the ones we love.”

He went on to point out that artificial intelligence (AI) cannot replace our loved ones, but it can make their memories lasting. This setup introduces a video showing an opportunity that “enables lasting personal relationships.” The video reveals a new feature called Personal Voice Speech that allows users to change Alexa’s default voice to one they know in real life — even a loved one who has passed away, as the presentation points out.

While these stories have sparked a mix of curiosity, ridicule, and thoughtful discourse, they’re just the latest in a long tradition of imagining how AI could change our world if it were more human-like. It’s been over ten years since IBM’s Watson entered Danger! and more than half a century since the conscious supercomputer HAL 9000 was brought to life on the silver screen in 2001: A space odyssey.

All of this begs the question: after decades of creativity and innovation fueled by the promise of AI, why is it still easier to talk to a real person when you need customer service or help with a problem?

What if we moved beyond the superficial qualities that make AI look and sound like a human, and instead focus on what it feels like to interact with a human?

Achieving authenticity through automation

Aside from the disturbing use case presented in the Amazon keynote, the ability to mimic voices based on short audio clips is certainly an impressive feat of technology. However, empathy and affection are key to building trust, and digital, human-like experiences cannot be easily replicated via attributes.

Whether affect is used as a noun (eg, tone, volume, vocabulary, etc.) or as a verb (ie, influence), it is not necessarily distinguishable from empathy, but rather an expression of it. Empathy requires understanding another person’s perspective and feelings — exactly what so many AI use cases fail to do.

According to an annual questionnaire of senior C-suite executives, published by New Vantage Partners, 92% of companies are accelerating their investment in AI. The companies surveyed, including 85 leading Fortune 1000 companies, report making steady progress in adopting AI initiatives: more than 75% reported widespread AI adoptionand less than 5% reported no AI applications in use.

It is clear that companies are confident in their AI investments. Twilio found it that 75% of business-to-consumer (B2C) brands say they have a good or excellent personal experience. However, that research also revealed a crucial counterpoint: only 48% of consumers surveyed agreed with that statement. This gap between what brands think they are offering and what their consumers are actually experiencing is a cause for concern.

Leveraging conversation technology to deliver personalized experiences

Consumers have made it clear that technology alone does not provide an excellent, personalized experience. Automation can help brands of all sizes deliver more human interactions at scale, but only if it truly captures what makes our interactions human. Conversation technology at scale doesn’t require sci-fi packaging — even small brands can do it today and do it well. Brands should focus on technology that enables interactions that deliver content over superficial features, authenticity over theatricality.

Tools that drive conversational interactions work best when they are in dialogue with the user; not just learning from input and synthetic data, but having a conversation that provides more and more context to make a recommendation — just like a person would. The insights delivered through one-to-one interactions can be more powerful for brands than third-party data, and they are also preferred by consumers.

Brands that deliver truly interactive, conversational experiences, powered by information during engaging customer interactions, will stand for better growth and stronger loyalty than brands that attempt to replicate these zero-party insights by extracting third-party data from unsuspecting users.

Bringing humanity to automated experiences doesn’t mean we have to imitate humans. It’s about understanding how human interactions work. The concept comes down to a simple observation – we learn more about each other through conversations.

Human interactions unfold one question at a time, with each side gaining more value and context as the conversation progresses. Compare this to a typical interaction with a brand that just asks for things from users – birthday, email, hometown, etc – and takes the rest from cookies without the user knowing. It’s a one-way conversation, with the user providing all the value and getting very little in return. If a real person treated you that way, would you want to talk to that person again or trust them with your personal information? Probably not.

While the advances that make AI increasingly human are entertaining and thought-provoking, few of these breakthroughs capture the parts of our humanity that allow us to interact as humans, such as empathy.

The real value for both brands and consumers will be found in the more subtle interactions that feel so natural; the technology is almost invisible and takes a backseat to allow for a more empathetic connection to our humanity.

Karrie Sanderson is the chief marketing officer at Typeform.