Virtual Assistant for Collaborative Meeting Efficiency
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Web conferencing meetings can be inefficient due to participants' unfamiliarity with the collaborative meeting platform user interface, leading to delays and confusion when performing actions like screen sharing, caused by software versioning, operating system differences, and lack of permissions.
Innovation Solution
A computer-implemented method using a virtual assistant powered by natural language processing (NLP) that detects triggers for assistance within a collaborative meeting platform, retrieves correlated actions, and performs or indicates these actions to assist participants, such as highlighting buttons or performing actions on their behalf, to enhance user interface interaction efficiency.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If participants use a collaborative meeting platform with complex user interface, then the platform can provide comprehensive meeting functions, but participants experience difficulty in operating the platform and time delays occur
Solution Approach 1:
A virtual assistant is introduced as an intermediary between participants and the collaborative meeting platform. The virtual assistant receives natural language commands from participants, interprets them, and executes the corresponding platform functions. This mediator layer abstracts the complex user interface away from participants, allowing them to interact with the platform using simple spoken or written commands rather than navigating complex UI elements.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical interaction model (clicking buttons, navigating menus, selecting options from dropdowns) with a natural language processing model. Participants speak or type their intentions in everyday language, and the virtual assistant translates these into platform-specific commands. This substitution eliminates the need for participants to learn and remember specific UI interactions while maintaining access to all platform functions.
2Adaptability or versatility
If participants are unfamiliar with the collaborative meeting platform user interface, then new participants can join the meeting, but delays and confusion occur when performing actions
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual assistant enables participants to independently perform platform operations without requiring assistance from other participants or knowledge of the platform's user interface. By processing natural language commands and automatically executing the corresponding actions, the system allows each participant to self-serve themselves, eliminating delays caused by others needing to guide them through UI operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual assistant is prepared in advance to handle a wide range of common meeting operations. When a participant expresses an intention in natural language, the assistant rapidly retrieves and executes the appropriate pre-programmed function. This preliminary preparation of response patterns allows for immediate action execution without requiring participants to learn or discover how to perform operations during the meeting.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the collaborative meeting platform provides comprehensive features, then meeting capabilities are enhanced, but user interface complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the interaction system into two distinct layers: a simple natural language interface for participants and a complex platform backend with comprehensive features. The virtual assistant acts as the segmentation boundary, translating between simple participant intent and complex platform operations. This allows the platform to maintain its full feature set while participants interact only through simple, consistent natural language commands regardless of which complex function is being accessed.
Data Source
AI summary
In an approach to assisting users of a collaborative meeting platform, one or more computer processors detect a start of a collaborative meeting. One or more computer processors monitor one or more activities of the collaborative meeting. Based on the one or more activities of the collaborative meeting, one or more computer processors detect a trigger for assistance with a user interface of the collaborative meeting. One or more computer processors retrieve one or more correlated actions associated with the trigger. One or more computer processors perform at least one of the one or more retrieved correlated action within the user interface of the collaborative meeting.