Voice assistants to improve and speed up sales work

The Tekniker technology centre has collaborated in the design of a solution that allows voice interaction with business management systems developed by the ANER group.

The change in the relationship between people and machines, driven by spoken language, is revolutionising the way we interact with technology. Virtual assistants such as Alexa or Siri have become part of the household, simplifying everyday life. However, in the professional environment, a system comparable in functionality and versatility has yet to establish itself.

In this context, the Tekniker technology centre, a member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), and the ANER business group, specialising in business management software, have collaborated in the development of a tool designed to carry out tasks through natural voice communication and interact with other computer systems used in the workplace.

This is OnyxVoice, a virtual assistant that has all the necessary mechanisms to interact with the different components of ANER’s business management platform called Onyx. The solution allows the user to communicate with the tool in the same way as any other chatbot, but, in this case, in a professional environment.

In other words, the assistant improves the user experience by allowing the user to browse and search for data, as well as filling in forms by voice in a natural way, understanding and processing the message received.

“To enable the tool to understand and interpret the worker’s different commands, we have developed a service based on natural language processing technologies. In this way, the virtual assistant listens to natural voice instructions and converts them into actions that OnyxComercial can understand and execute,” says Izaskun Fernández, a researcher at Tekniker.

Flexibility and adaptability

In addition, although it is currently only available for Onyx commercial tasks, the assistant can be easily implemented in other modules of the platform when the need arises.

This flexibility and adaptability to future scenarios is made possible by a modular dialogue system that allows the tool to establish more complex dialogues with users when necessary. There is even the possibility of integrating spoken responses, as in other similar assistants.

The OnyxVoice project, which started in 2022 and was completed in 2023, is a project carried out for ANER Sistemas Informáticos and funded by the Government of Spain through its 2020 call for aid on technological development based on artificial intelligence and other digital enabling technologies, within the framework of the strategic action of digital economy and society of the state R&D&I programme aimed at the challenges of society and the state programme of business leadership in R&D&I.