Automated Conversation Review for Virtual Assistant Misunderstandings

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Solution Overview

Problem

The increasing use of intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs) for customer service and sales support leads to a growing need for efficient and scalable methods to review human-computer interactions for quality assurance, as manual human review is time-consuming, subjective, and raises privacy concerns due to the exposure of user data.

Innovation Solution

An automated conversation review system that identifies potential miscommunications by analyzing conversation data between users and IVAs, generating risk scores for intent misclassification, and autonomously marking interactions where the IVA misunderstands the user, thereby reducing the need for human reviewers to access entire conversation logs.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If manual human review is used to validate IVA behavior, then quality assurance can be performed, but the process becomes time-consuming and reviewers can only view a limited number of interactions

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvequality assuranceVSAvoidreview time
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The patent introduces an automated review system that acts as an intermediary between the IVA interactions and human reviewers. This system uses machine learning models to pre-analyze conversation data, generate risk scores indicating potential misunderstandings, and prioritize which interactions require human review. This intermediary layer filters out many interactions that don't require human attention, significantly reducing reviewer time while maintaining quality assurance.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

Solution Approach 2:

The system enables the IVA to self-evaluate its own performance by automatically analyzing its conversation data against trained language models. The automated review process allows the system to identify its own misunderstandings and generate improvement suggestions without requiring extensive human intervention, thus reducing the time burden on reviewers while maintaining reliable quality assurance.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #25Self-service

2Reliability

If more conversation interactions are reviewed, then quality assurance coverage increases, but privacy concerns increase due to exposure of user data

Engineering Contradiction:
Improvequality assurance coverageVSAvoidprivacy invasion
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSObject-affected harmful factors

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts and analyzes only the essential features and patterns from conversation data that are necessary for quality assurance, such as intent classification accuracy and misunderstanding indicators. By extracting only these critical elements rather than exposing entire conversation logs to reviewers, the system maintains comprehensive quality assurance coverage while minimizing privacy invasion. The automated system processes data in a way that focuses on performance metrics rather than sensitive user information.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

3Measurement precision

If human reviewers manually analyze conversations, then subjective disagreements occur on user intention, but the process lacks scalability

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveintent interpretation accuracyVSAvoidreview scalability
Core Design Contradiction:
Measurement precisionVSProductivity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent replaces the mechanical human review process with an automated system using machine learning models and natural language processing. This substitution eliminates subjective disagreements by using consistent, reproducible algorithms to analyze intent and generate risk scores. The automated system can process vast numbers of interactions simultaneously, providing scalable quality assurance without the limitations of human reviewer capacity and subjectivity.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #28Mechanics substitution (Replace mechanical system)

4Reliability

If the IVA is improved continuously, then understanding accuracy increases, but errors appear less often making random sampling less effective

Engineering Contradiction:
Improveunderstanding accuracyVSAvoiderror detection effectiveness
Core Design Contradiction:
ReliabilityVSMeasurement precision

Solution Approach 1:

The patent implements preliminary analysis using trained language models that can proactively identify potential misunderstandings before they become apparent in random sampling. The system pre-processes conversation data to generate risk scores that highlight interactions with higher probability of errors, allowing reviewers to focus on cases where errors are most likely to occur even as overall accuracy improves. This preliminary action maintains effective error detection despite the decreasing frequency of errors.

Inventive Principle:
Principle #10Preliminary action

Data Source

PatentUS11842410B2Automated conversation review to surface virtual assistant misunderstandings
Publication Date: 2023.12.12 VERINT AMERICAS INC
  • US11842410B2 patent drawing
  • US11842410B2 patent drawing
  • US11842410B2 patent drawing

AI summary

A scalable system provides automated conversation review that can identify potential miscommunications. The system may provide suggested actions to fix errors in intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) understanding, may prioritize areas of language model repair, and may automate the review of conversations. By the use of an automated system for conversation review, problematic interactions can be surfaced without exposing the entire set of conversation logs to human reviewers, thereby minimizing privacy invasion. A scalable system processes conversations and autonomously marks the interactions where the IVA is misunderstanding the user.