Do you want to know how Aura, Telefónica’s Artificial Intelligence, learns and what its personality looks like? Ana Molina and Marta Pérez, from Aura’s experience and research design department, tell us about it.
First of all, what is Aura?
M. P. Aura is the Artificial Intelligence of Telefónica, and what is particular about it is that it is able to learn from users.
What is the difference between a digital assistant and an Artificial Intelligence?
A.M. In fact, a digital assistant is a system that performs tasks automatically to humans. An attendee could even be a Calendar because it saves you events and alerts you when your next meeting is. The difference is that it does not learn from your behavior, but always executes the same commands.
It is true that the popularization of this concept comes from the hand of assistants who introduce the conversation. Those assistants are already smarter by understanding natural language, which is one of the most complex human capabilities. Although there are many opinions about what Artificial Intelligence is, it could be said that Artificial Intelligence occurs when a system is able to learn.
What is Aura’s learning model based on?
A.M. It is based on extract the most relevant information from each user’s context, cook it a little, and act appropriately to each situation. That context is related to the products or services you consume, when you consume them, what type of tariff you have contracted, or where you are physically located. In this way, when making requests through the voice, Aura can be anticipated to provide the most appropriate response.
Through models and algorithms that calculate patterns, inferences can be made to know when a user will run out of data, what is the most appropriate rate for their circumstances, or what is the next game or the next movie they will want to see. Thus Aura can give specific answers for each user.
A.M. The data it extracts is used to try to get to know the user better through their behavior. Such data they are stored in what we call the fourth platform, a space where data is secure, normalized and controlled. Consent always depends on the user, as Aura offers you full control of your data through the transparency portal.
Does Aura listen to everything we say?
M. P. Aura has a wake up word on Movistar Home, which is “OK Aura”, and makes Aura wake up. In the Movistar + app you have to press a button and that is when it is activated.
A.M. You actually have to be listening to that wake up word, although it does not process what it is hearing until that match occurs via the ” OK Aura.”
In Spain there are many ways of speaking and many accents, how do you get Aura to understand everything?
A.M. There are voice recognizers that use the technology speech to text that translate the words that users say to a text string. These recognizers are trained to be able to understand users to the fullest, but today they have certain limitations. Aura does not develop its own technology for this purpose. That text string is what actually gets to Aura’s engine so that it processes it and can reply to the user.
Does Aura have personality?
M. P. Whenever a user has a conversation with a virtual assistant, he unconsciously attributes a personality to it. Aura’s goal is to generate a new model of relationship, closer, emotional and based on trust. Defining a personality in Aura helps to have consistency in messages and build a personality that is the same regardless of the topic, country, channel, mode of interaction with which you consult Aura.
Aura will always have the same personality globally, but adapted locally in countries. Therefore, we have worked hard to make Aura have a reliable and rational personality, and that is in line with both its value proposition and the values for which Telefónica bets. The idea is that, in addition, the personality of Aura will evolve as it acquires capabilities.
And gender?
M. P. Aura has no gender nor should it have, since it is not a person but an Artificial Intelligence, therefore, it should not be defined as something else. We had it clear from the beginning, Aura should never give a message in which it is defined with a genre. However, when users talk about Aura, they sometimes refer to it as a masculine entity and others as feminine, since in Spanish it is difficult to refer to something without opting for a genre. This same dilemma has been seen with respect to other virtual assistants, where there has been a change of direction and there is a tendency to be increasingly neutral in this regard.
Aura is present in 6 countries and you can communicate with this Artificial Intelligence through different channels, but is its voice always the same?
M. P. When choosing voices, we did a study to see if users preferred Aura to have a female or male voice. In most countries users preferred Aura to have a female voice because it generated more confidence. Male voices, on the other hand, seemed more authoritarian to them.
A.M. In the UK, for example, Aura has a male voice. We believe that, the fact that most of the attendees present in that market, use male voices has caused users to see it as more natural.
M. P. Anyway, Aura currently uses the voice that the user has configured on their Smartphone. Therefore, if a user has a male voice set up, Aura will have that voice, just as if it is female. In the case of Movistar Home, Aura does have a voice of its own that has been chosen through this research study because of its timbre, speed, tone, pronunciation…
The penetration of virtual assistants in the market is gradually increasing, do you think we are prepared to interact with them naturally in our day to day?
A.M. We have been using Artificial Intelligence for years, so we’re very used to it. Although we do not realize, many of the applications and services we use every day use it. It is true that these intelligent digital assistants are something of the last few years.
Finding an application, comparing services, locating a menu on a website are tasks that are sometimes not accessible to everyone. That’s it. Aura’s opportunity: normalize data, simplify experiences and enrich the services Telefónica provides to its customers. We can’t not be prepared for that!
