Another Microsoft course completed: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

I am pleased to report that I have just passed another Microsoft course, this time from the Microsoft Professional Program for Artificial Intelligence:

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, with a final mark of 100%.

This was a fascinating course, providing a very good introduction to machine learning, text analysis, computer vision (including face recognition and video analysis) and conversation as a platform (chatbots and Natural Language Processing [NLP]).

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Let your users ask “What’s my next step?” – a very useful AI addition to your apps

One example of how #AI can make it easier for your staff, customers or suppliers to interact with your software tools is to add a combined”Next Step / Tell me what you want to do” facility.

This uses natural language processing (NLP) combined with knowledge of who the user is (and what their role is, e.g. whether they are a member of staff, a customer, or a supplier, or a user with admin rights for example) and the context (which page or part of the app they are on, and what data they have stored in the system), to add two powerful new ways for the user to interact (with minimal training) with the app:

What’s my next step?

On any page, simply clicking the Go button asks the system “What’s my next step?”.  The system then look intelligently at the user’s identity, role, data and location within the app and makes one or more suggestions as to what the user could usefully do next to make the most of the app.

Here are a couple of examples, taken from InQA’s WebPocketMoney application (referred to in this previous post).

Example 1: a new user has just registered and wonders what they should do.  They could consult the online help file which will tell them that they need to register their family within the system.  But far more simply, then can just ask “What’s my next step?” by clicking the Go button.  The system guides them step by step, telling them initially that they need to create one or more families in the system:

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WebPocketMoney.com: an easy way to track your children’s pocket money balances online, with a natural “Tell me” user interface.

WebPocketMoney 1.0 released!

(Posted by Patrick Lee on 6 May 2017 at a different location, but migrated here on 05 Feb 2018).

We are delighted to announce the release earlier this week of WebPocketMoney.com, our cloud based app that enables parents and their children to track and manage pocket money online.

A new, sophisticated online tool for parents and children to track and manage pocket money balances

This web app has been designed to help parents and children manage pocket money in a user-friendly way that encourages saving. It uses notional accounts rather than physical accounts (which are often difficult to create for children) and this has the advantage that you can offer your children much higher interest rates (e.g. 5% or 10% per month) than are commonly available in the real world, in order to encourage them to save.