18.03.2019 – Press review: „Use of analogous service documents through AI“ (Service Today 01/2019)
The current issue of Service Today (member magazine of the German customer service association KVD) includes an interview by SERVICE TODAY’s editor Michael Braun (media house Waltrop) with Knut Krummnacker of INS Systems GmbH and Hagen Wustlich of Planet GmbH discussing the possibilities of artificial intelligence for small and medium-sized companies. We publish this article with the kind permission of the KVD.
Use of analogous service documents in the digital world through AI
More and more service organizations and companies are digitizing their processes. This also means that old analogous documents must be digitized to avoid media breaks. But which method is suitable, and how do you make the information usable as a service manager? Promising approaches in the field of artificial intelligence are already in place today. INS Systems presents a holistic concept in cooperation with Planet AI that transfers AI related concepts into everyday solutions.
Download the article here (German document)
Michael Braun: You have developed a platform called PlanetBrain. You describe it as a universal cognitive system for text, speech and image recognition. The system can probably do more than a conventional OCR software …
Hagen Wustlich: … certainly: Imagine our AI PlanetBrain as a platform that is capable of understanding and analyzing content in any format, be it text, audio, image or even video. PlanetBrain extracts and classifies information, collates documents, and analyzes records.
Michael Braun: In which service environment should companies consider the implementation of AI ?
Hagen Wustlich: Planet AI has developed a comprehensive solution portfolio for various business sectors such as insurance companies, banks or technical service providers, where, for example, incoming mail and documents from internal departments need to be scanned and documented. ArgusSearch, AddressRecognition, and Intelligent Document Analysis (IDA) are other such examples. Planet Brain is absolutely business independent. It can be applied to a variety of scenarios. The modules of cognitive intelligence consistently evolve and serve as a true “AI advisor” by analyzing different types of data configurations. PlanetBrain is able to understand the relationships between the datasets without any form of preprocessing and only passes relevant information on to the corresponding systems.
Michael Braun: Transferred into practice – what options do I have, if I want to use AI for my service organization?
Knut Krummnacker: Let’s take customer files and postal traffic: The AI tool detects postal codes, cities, street names and house numbers – whether printed or handwritten. The solution enables full-text search in documents without indexing. Scanned fonts can be searched for content. The versatility and potential opportunities of AI are applicable to a wide range of applications: health insurance companies use the technology for processing of documents in the inbox. Or think of the many order forms or written documentation of service cases: these can be scanned and searched, even if they are handwritten documents. As part of a proof of concept, this technology can be tested at any time or even used intermittently via INS.
Michael Braun: That means, in my service organization, I have the possibility to digitally record completely handwritten documentation of service cases and use them?
Hagen Wustlich: Exactly, AI helps you to recognize what is contained in the documents by analyzing the context. Broadly speaking, when is zero a zero and not the letter O? When is it the letter I, and when is it the number 1? OCR software quickly reaches its limits, with AI we take you one step further.
Michael Braun: And INS provides the technical basis for the AI environment?
Knut Krummnacker: Yes, exactly. If you also need scalable and flexible resources and want to be safe in terms of security and compliance and do not want to spend your own time on backups or IT operations, INS has the right answer for you. All test and production data is provided by the customer, whether physically or from the cloud. Operation, availability and backup are defined by service level agreements.
About the KVD:The service association KVD e. V. is Europe’s largest and most important professional association for experts and junior employees in service. Through network events, training and further education as well as the integration of the latest research results, it supports its members in designing professional customer service. As a registered association, the KVD is a non-profit organization. As an objective and independent entity, the KVD represents no particular interests in the political and economic discussion, but serves the exchange of experience and ideas of more than 1,600.
Further information is available at www.kvd.de