Covid-19 and Technology Saving Solutions, Think Touchless and Contactless

Some of you are trickling back into work, venturing out into the city or to restaurants, and rethinking ways you go about interfacing, touching, and interacting. As such, Compass Intelligence has been thinking about technology and some of the existing solutions that are already available today to help mitigate risk, reduce virus exposure, limit touching, and improving clean and virus-free air. As we seek out touchless and safe solutions, below is a short list of technologies to help support in removing risk and helping us with safe alternatives:

• Robots/Chatbots (customer services, onboarding, set up, avoid in-store or on location services)
• Smart Speakers & Response, Voice Automation (Info, Admittance, Entry, Opening/Closing, Q&A)
• Natural Language Processing/Contextual Voice or Haptic Voice (Identification, Processing, Acting)
• Digital Humans (Remove the human risk, More personal than robots, Conversational response)
• Contactless Payments, Contactless Door and Elevator Opening & Management
• Non-invasive temperature sensors at the door or upon entry (Temperature Taking)
• Work From Home (WFH) technologies (This is a no brainer!)
• Biometrics for Authentication (not just on smartphones, for other interactions)
• Conversational AI (For Acting and Information Sharing, Avoid Human Contact)
• Smart Cameras and Machine Vision Technology (Traffic and Visitor Management, Volume of People Measurement)
• Location Identification and Routing (Curbside, Touchless, Contactless)

Last week Stephanie had a briefing with Ken Herron, the CMO at UIB. We discussed many of these solutions above and how UIB is combining the use of WhatsApp (WhatsApp Business Account, WAPA), their own Unified AI® platform, and Chatbots or other technology to support in removing risk and supporting touchless and contactless operations. Ken shares, "UIB created the world's first and leading conversational AI platform with cognitive IoT capabilities — UnificationEngine®. It facilitates frictionless onboarding and seamless communications between humans, IT systems, and machines, such as connected appliances (smart homes), smart cities and smart factories (Industry 4.0)." We discussed the world we live in today where COVID-19 has spurred the number of use cases to embrace touchless and contactless solutions. The power of IoT, AI, and robotics come together to enable many industries to provide safer services to customers from home or even in-person experiences.

Below is a video Ken shared, that walks you through the use of conversational AI and other use cases. One of which is how UIB combined conversational AI, picture sharing, and simple text communications for setting up post-sale warranties for Samsung products.

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Another area for mitigating risk is in air quality or creating safe environments for offices, buildings, and facilities. Last month, I spoke with Anthony Veri of Integrated Network Concepts and we discussed the trend of UVC Lighting along with the impact to cities (more specifically city owned buildings and offices). My own father is in the commercial HVAC industry, so this was a topic of interest. As some businesses open up, they will seek out daily cleaning and sanitizing of work surfaces, but what about the use of the HVAC system to sanitize using germacidal UV light or ultraviolet lights. UVC Lighting is known to kill the coronavirus by up to 99% (this has not been validated by Compass Intelligence), but is not safe for humans or animals while working (according to studies). Companies who offer this recommend safety protocols and administering the cleaning when no one is in the office (middle of the night) but companies have to validate no one is in the office (and there are tech solutions for that). Four interesting companies working in this space that Anthony shared and Compass Intelligence identified include:

• Steril Aire - https://www.steril-aire.com/ (UVC lights in the HVAC system)
• Igor Tech - https://www.igor-tech.com/uv
• Hubbell - https://www.hubbell.com/hubbelllightingci/en/spectraclean
• Signify - https://www.signify.com/en-us/innovation/uv-c

Before you move forward, always do your homework, as there is more to learn about this virus and the solutions available all come with positives and negatives. Contact Compass Intelligence today to explore other technology topics or to explore our research.