Building conversational AI chatbots with Amazon Lex(Part-1)

by Pronay Ghosh and Hiren Rupchandani

• In the previous article, we learned in-depth about Amazon Augmented AI solutions.
• We learned that Data in any format, including organized and unstructured data, is fed into Amazon’s proprietary AI services.
• We also learned that models are created according to standard protocol and deployed to the end-server.
• Then there’s Amazon Augmented AI’s operation.
• It accepts the end inputs and forecasts using the machine learning model that has previously been installed on the server.
• The backend team already sets the confidence threshold for such an assignment, thus it delivers a confidence score.
• The A2I service now passes the predictions with better confidence from the threshold to the client application for model retraining.
• In this article, we will learn in-depth about Amazon Lex which is an AI-based chatbot development service offered by AWS.

What are conversational AI chatbots?

• Chatbots can be powered by conversational AI to grow smarter and more powerful.
• However, it’s vital to note that conversational AI isn’t used by all chatbots.
• Basic chatbots are only capable of doing a limited number of functions.
• In most cases, this entails answering basic FAQs and not much else.
• Chatbots require conversational AI to improve their ability to interpret human language.
• They also need this to provide transactional functionality in addition to their informational capabilities that fulfill the demands of big corporates.
• You can do more with conversational AI than just translate website text into simple chatbot responses.
• Instead, users may use the chat window to block credit cards, file insurance claims, upgrade data plans, scan bills, and much more.

What is Amazon Lex?

Amazon Lex is a fully managed artificial intelligence (AI) service that lets you design, build, test, and deploy conversational interfaces in your apps using advanced natural language models.

How does Amazon Lex work?

• Amazon Lex, which is powered by the same technology like Alexa, gives you the ability to solve difficult deep learning challenges.
• These challenges may include speech recognition and language understanding through an easy-to-use, fully managed service.
• Amazon Lex interfaces with AWS Lambda, allowing you to simply trigger functions for data retrieval and modifications in your back-end business logic.
• Your bot can be directly deployed to chat platforms, mobile clients, and IoT devices after it’s been constructed.
• You may also use the reports to keep track of your bot’s metrics.
• Amazon Lex is an end-to-end solution for building, publishing, and monitoring bots that is scalable, safe, and simple to use.

Use cases of Amazon Lex:

1. Fintech:

• AWS provides safe, robust global cloud infrastructure and services to financial services companies in banking, payments, capital markets, and insurance.
• This allows them to differentiate themselves now while adapting to future needs.
• We know financial institutions adopt customer service delivery methods to meet constantly changing consumer behaviors and expectations.
• Similarly, Amazon Lex assists in delivering sophisticated and natural conversational experiences.
• Amazon Lex for Financial Services provides pre-built solutions for your use case.
• This allows you to provide excellent customer service while maintaining operational efficiency.
• You may automate customer support interactions like credit card payments, mortgage loan applications, portfolio status, and account updates using the pre-built chatbots.
• For financial service use cases, the pre-built bots are configured with intents, sample utterances, and slot types,
• These are integrated with Amazon Connect contact processes so you can offer more experiences, faster.

2. Insurance:

• AWS enables insurance companies to optimize and reinvent their businesses, strengthen client relationships, and improve risk profiles.
• As they upgrade their basic infrastructure and create individualized insurance products, insurers can use Amazon Lex to quickly develop innovative digital consumer experiences.
• Amazon Lex for Insurance provides pre-built solutions to help you deliver high-volume experiences and increase digital engagement.
• You can automate client interactions like claims processing and policy administration using the pre-built chatbots.
• For both speech and chat modalities, the purpose-built bots provide ready-to-use conversation flows.
• These flows can be used as training data and dialogue prompts as well.
• You may reduce the time it takes to deliver client solutions while also maximizing resources.
• This allows your teams to focus on more difficult issues and cultivate stronger relationships.

3. Retail

• On a fast, flexible, and scalable cloud architecture, Amazon Lex for Retail AWS enables retailers to develop appealing experiences.
• These experiences then attract more customers, drive more sales, and achieve outcomes.
• Amazon Lex assists shops in delivering a dynamic conversational experience as they test new ideas and improve processes.

Conclusion:

• So far in this article, we covered a high-level overview of the working principle of Amazon Lex.
• In the next article, we will learn about the architecture of Amazon Lex, its features, and the pricing offered by AWS.

Follow us for more upcoming future articles related to Data Science, Machine Learning, and Artificial Intelligence.

Also, Do give us a Clap👏 if you find this article useful as your encouragement catalyzes inspiration for and helps to create more cool stuff like this.