I-Corps: Fast Deployment Service for Automated Business-to-Client Interactive Messaging

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一个平台，用于促进称为聊天机器人的交互式自动消息传递服务的部署，该服务可以由非技术人员进行配置。社区普遍认为聊天机器人已成为最近主要的移动的应用趋势之一。聊天机器人是一种计算机程序，旨在模拟与人类用户的对话，特别是通过各种消息传递渠道，包括纯文本和互联网上的即时消息。存在开发平台以促进聊天机器人部署以用于更广泛使用的需求。这种创新对任何有许多客户的企业都是有用的，并且可以通过将日常对话委托给自动交互式消息传递系统来节省通信资源。该工具的潜在商业影响将通过减少行政负担来节省时间和金钱。这个I-Corps项目将探索灵活的通用聊天机器人服务的商业可行性，该服务可以由非技术人员编程，操作和管理，以快速，廉价的部署。通过使用专用菜单，系统操作员将通过添加用户特定变量、上传消息及其触发/调度条件、设置消息传递通道、链接到外部数据源和目的地来对其协议进行编程。该系统将在后台自动地将所有的消息及其触发条件集成到一个无冲突的协议流中，并允许操作员通过仿真及时检查和观察协议执行流程。该概念验证原型已经用于两个健康促进项目，团队成员获得了宝贵的经验。这种方法提供了比现有解决方案更大的灵活性和有条件的循环选项。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to develop a platform for facilitated deployment of interactive automated messaging services called chatbots, that can be configured by non-technical personnel. There is a broad community consensus that the chatbots have become one of the recent major mobile application trends. Chatbots are computer programs designed to simulate conversations with human users, especially over various messaging channels including plain texting and instant messaging over the Internet. There exists a need in developing platforms to facilitate chatbots deployments for broader use. The innovation can be useful to any business which has many customers and can save communication resources by delegating routine conversations to an automated interactive messaging system. The potential commercial impact of this tool will be significant for both saving time and money by reducing administrative burdens.This I-Corps project will explore commercial feasibility of a flexible generic chatbot service which can be programmed, operated and managed by non-technical personnel for fast and inexpensive deployments. By using dedicated menus, the system operators will program their protocols by adding user-specific variables, uploading messages and their triggering/scheduling conditions, setting messaging channels, linking to external data sources and destinations. The proposed system will automatically integrate all the messages and their triggering conditions in a conflict-free protocol flow on the background and will allow the operator to check and observe the protocol execution flow in time by simulation. The proof-of-concept prototype is already used in two health-promotion projects and the team members gain valuable experience. This approach provides more flexibility and conditioned cycling options than existing solutions.