The unique challenge India presents to natural language processing
There is considerable attention around developing utility applications that rely on the understanding of language to function as bots in call centers, customer services, search, virtual agents etc.
- Oct 3, 2018,
- Updated Oct 8, 2018 6:44 PM IST
Among the world's fast-growing economies and one with the second largest population, the Indian market is garnering considerable interest and is on the radar of internet and software companies. There is considerable attention around developing utility applications that rely on the understanding of language to function as bots in call centers, customer services, search, virtual agents etc. across multiple channels including voice, web and social.
Bain & Company's extensive report, 'Unlocking Digital for Bharat' estimates India to have 390 million internet users today with one in five owning a smartphone. But it also recognizes the need to create solutions based on local needs and behavior as critical to improving user engagement. With online users skewed towards a young, male, urban demographic there are large parts of the population still untouched by online access. Natural Language Processing (NLP) has the potential to broaden online access to a wider share of India's population.
NLP technology development has grown significantly due to high computing GPU machines, wide internet availability and speeds, and the spread of mobile devices. Is the time right for India to embrace this? New services around text-to-speech and speech-to-text would significantly help low income, the visually challenged and differently-abled to become part of the Digital India revolution. As part of the GoogleNext Billion plan, voice search has already launched in eight Indian languages to enable consumers to use their voice for search queries.
Based on a recent survey - how chatbots are reshaping online experience - the benefit of bots that consumers pointed to was the ability to get 24-hour service (64%), followed by getting instant responses to inquiries (55%), and getting answers to simple questions (55%). But that's where things get complicated.
Among the world's fast-growing economies and one with the second largest population, the Indian market is garnering considerable interest and is on the radar of internet and software companies. There is considerable attention around developing utility applications that rely on the understanding of language to function as bots in call centers, customer services, search, virtual agents etc. across multiple channels including voice, web and social.
Bain & Company's extensive report, 'Unlocking Digital for Bharat' estimates India to have 390 million internet users today with one in five owning a smartphone. But it also recognizes the need to create solutions based on local needs and behavior as critical to improving user engagement. With online users skewed towards a young, male, urban demographic there are large parts of the population still untouched by online access. Natural Language Processing (NLP) has the potential to broaden online access to a wider share of India's population.
NLP technology development has grown significantly due to high computing GPU machines, wide internet availability and speeds, and the spread of mobile devices. Is the time right for India to embrace this? New services around text-to-speech and speech-to-text would significantly help low income, the visually challenged and differently-abled to become part of the Digital India revolution. As part of the GoogleNext Billion plan, voice search has already launched in eight Indian languages to enable consumers to use their voice for search queries.
Based on a recent survey - how chatbots are reshaping online experience - the benefit of bots that consumers pointed to was the ability to get 24-hour service (64%), followed by getting instant responses to inquiries (55%), and getting answers to simple questions (55%). But that's where things get complicated.