Here is a story that I have a special interest in, having developed a number of web and Instant Messenger agents over the last 7 or 8 years myself. Alaska Airlines, and as it turns out the US Army, have recently deployed virtual agents to their sites. While it does not appear as though the technology has taken great leaps forward, it is nice to see commercial deployments and apparently satisfied customers embracing the technology. In this case, developer Next IT spokesman Jeff Brown says “We built out the personality, aware that people would want to test the bounds,” and further “So if they ask questions such as ‘Are you married?’ or ‘Where did you go to school?’ she’s able to answer intelligently, and all of a sudden people’s trust in the overall knowledge goes up significantly. We’re in the business of making her very smart. Basically, besides knowledge, the virtual agent’s image has a past, a current and a future.” The NY Times article discussing Alaska Airlines deployment does not say whether or not Next IT uses proprietary software, the experience reminds me of Artificial Solutions (formerly Kiwi Logic) Interactive Chat Assistant technology. There are also offerings by Microsoft on the horizon after their acquisition of the buddyscript platform, and of course the open source Alice from the A.L.I.C.E. Artificial Intelligence Foundation and Dr. Richard Wallace.
