Conversational AI enables people to use speech or written ‘conversational’ text to interact with a system. Most of us experience Conversational AI through bots when dealing with retailers, utilities, or airlines. A framework for SAP Conversational AI is now available, and we’ll get into how we are working with that. First, what value do bots provide?
Sometimes bots help, and sometimes functionality is limited, which results in end-user frustration. The benefits for companies, however, can be substantial. One customer service rep using chatbot assistance can usually serve four to five times the amount of people compared to the same representative serving customers over the phone. That has applications for organizations internally as well.
In the HR space, we see inquiries such as HR information, record keeping, and benefits administration going increasingly to automation. Not only can and should those activities be automated but automation also usually implies a 24/7 coverage.
To state it plainly: rather than having to call my HR manager or log in to SAP SuccessFactors to perform HR tasks, I can ask an SAP Conversational AI-powered chatbot in plain English (or another language):
Related: Rise of the HR Bots in SAP SuccessFactors
Utilizing SAP’s Conversational AI Framework
SAP provides a cloud-based Conversation AI framework to develop chatbots that can work independently or in conjunction with a business system such as SAP. To prove the technical feasibility of the SAP Conversational AI functionality, we used the input from our own CHRO and assembled an HR Chatbot.
That chatbot can answer simple questions like: ‘What is the 
company dress code?’ As we integrate it with SAP SuccessFactors, it can answer some more complex questions like ‘Who is my HR partner?.’ The latter triggers a call to SuccessFactors and determines, in real-time, who is assigned to my employee record as my HR business partner.
To the right, you can see the interaction with the SAP Conversational AI virtual assistant. Below you can see the matching record in the SuccessFactors test system.
Bringing Conversational AI to Life
At Rizing, our development team is working to help our customers design, implement, and integrate SAP Conversational AI functionality in connection with SAP SuccessFactors, as well as the full SAP technology stack. We are also striving to help organizations build the business case for improving processes using Conversational AI, and in the process, free up HR professionals to tasks that move the organization forward.