Presented By O’Reilly and Intel AI
Put AI to Work
April 29-30, 2018: Training
April 30-May 2, 2018: Tutorials & Conference
New York, NY

How Comcast uses AI to reinvent the customer experience

Jan Neumann (Comcast), Dominique Izbicki (Comcast)
2:35pm–3:15pm Tuesday, May 1, 2018
AI Business Summit, Implementing AI
 Location: Sutton South
Average rating: *****
(5.00, 2 ratings)

Who is this presentation for?

  • Researchers, engineers, and business leaders working on chatbots and customer service-related projects

Prerequisite knowledge

  • Basic knowledge of machine learning and deep learning

What you'll learn

  • Gain insight into how a Fortune 50 company used AI to improve its customer service solution
  • Learn how to develop a customer service virtual assistant that can support millions of customers
  • Understand how reinforcement learning allows you to learn from interactions between customers and both human and artificial agents

Description

Comcast is the largest cable and internet provider in the US, reaching more than 30 million customers. Recently, Comcast started a major effort to reinvent the customer service experience for its customers using artificial intelligence. Jan Neumann and Jeanine Heck explain how Comcast uses deep learning to build virtual assistants that allow its customers to contact the company with questions or concerns and how it uses contextual information about customers and systems in a reinforcement learning framework to identify the best actions that answer these customers’ questions or resolve their concerns.

Topics include:

  • How the virtual assistants use deep learning based natural language models to identify a customer’s intent and interact with them using conversational dialogue
  • How Comcast formulated the problem resolution process in a reinforcement learning framework and trained models that map the state of the customers’ devices and its own systems to corrective actions for a given intent
  • How Comcast operationalized the machine learning models to handle scale
  • Lessons learned from deploying the systems
  • Real-world use cases
Photo of Jan Neumann

Jan Neumann

Comcast

Jan Neumann leads Comcast’s Applied Artificial Intelligence Research Group, which combines large-scale machine learning, deep learning, NLP, and computer vision to develop novel algorithms and product concepts such as voice interfaces, virtual assistants, and video and IoT analytics that improve the experience of Comcast’s customers. Previously, Jan worked for Siemens Corporate Research on various computer vision-related projects, such as driver assistance systems and video surveillance. He has published over 20 papers in scientific conferences and journals and is a frequent speaker on machine learning and data science. He holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Photo of Dominique Izbicki

Dominique Izbicki

Comcast

Dominique Izbicki is a senior director of product management in the technology and product organization at Comcast, where she focuses on using artificial intelligence to enhance Xfinity products, specifically concentrating on advancement of content discovery across Comcast products and creating custom viewing experiences. Dominique is a thought leader who is helping to develop and mobilize the company’s initial artificial intelligence strategy. Previously, she was a director of strategy and planning in strategic development, focusing on overall portfolio management of new growth businesses and initial operationalization of those initiatives, and was part of the X1 team responsible for business operations for new Xfinity TV products. Dominique started her career as a member of General Electric’s prestigious Information Management Leadership Development Program and spent her time at GE in application development, management, and supplier management, in both the US and Ireland. Dominique holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in information sciences and technology from Pennsylvania State University. She currently resides in Philadelphia with her husband, Matt, and two children.