Microsoft has unleashed a new healthcare bot that provides cloud-based conversational AI to help patients take healthcare into their own hands.

“Chatbots are relatively low maintenance and help business users gain more control and ensure operations and support teams are more productive.”

Gartner says while there are obvious concerns for today’s workforce, the massive rise of AI will be about augmentation, not total automation.

“Conversation Agents present a huge opportunity to increase customer and employee engagement in a cost-effective manner."

If you find yourself in a tricky situation  - or if you just want to understand your rights as a landlord or tenant, you can now turn to a chatbot for help.

Gartner research shows that as the need for beyond-edge customer engagement rises, infrastructure service providers need to follow suit.

Five keys preparation tasks, and eight implementation elements to keep in mind when developing and implementing an AI service.

"Chatbots promise to improve customer experience by addressing well-known issues for both customers and the organisations serving them."

"Businesses cannot neglect the fact that on the other side of each transaction is a human being. And for some interactions, the most effective way to help a human being is with another."

Analysts expect chatbot usage to rise significantly in the next two years – a shift that could prove costly for brands that don’t evolve their bots.

"Gartner research suggests that by 2020, 85% of interactions will be handled by non-humans."

Cove Insurance has claimed it's first to sell insurance via a chatbot currently in private beta mode, and the tech looks promising.

Developments in AI technologies like ML and natural language processing will strengthen the connection between IT teams and their organisation.

Customers become emotionally invested and more loyal with brands that engage with them – but not all engagement methods are created equal.

That introduces a new criterion to how IT leaders make their choice of chatbots: observability.

The conversational UI functionality is available in more than a dozen Telerik and Kendo UI toolsets.

Ivanti has released a new cloud-delivered artificial intelligence (AI) application for service management.

In what may be an industry-first, a UK-based company has launched an intelligent chatbot especially designed for network security management tasks.

“As a non-profit, we’re getting on with providing a financial advice platform that people can trust.”

"AI will not be a standalone platform. It's not a little appliance you put in the corner and all of a sudden you've got an Alexa for the data center."

Bots must be helpful and speak naturally if brands are to limit consumer frustrations and generally succeed in their conversational strategies.

“People shouldn’t be worried about internet banking. They should be worried about what information they’re giving people who can impersonate them.

MemePR’s marketing platform uses artificial intelligence to connect working partners from all around the world with those in need of marketing service

AI is an extension of a human, not a substitute for it. Once we realise this fact, we can appreciate AI for what it truly is.