Rakuten Partners with Nuance

Rakuten Mobile is partnering with Nuance Communications to add Nuance ntelligent Engagement AI Services to the Rakuten Communications Platform (RCP).

Through the Nuance-Rakuten Mobile partnership, RCP will now offer the following:

• Conversational AI Services, with cloud-native software with application programming interfaces (APIs) for speech recognition, text-to-speech, natural language understanding, and advanced dialogue management that allow businesses to identify users via biometrics and allow individuals to engage with applications and devices by voice;
• Engagement AI Services, with digital engagement APIs that enable self-service virtual assistants and escalation to live agents with built-in support for live and asynchronous messaging and next-best-action recommendations; and
• Nuance Mix Rapid AppDev Environment: a conversational AI tooling platform that enables organizations to develop, test, deploy, and optimize virtual assistant, natural language, and speech solutions.

The Rakuten Virtual Assistant within Rakuten Link, Rakuten's native communication app based on Rich Communication Services (RCS) standards that brings together Rakuten services within a single app, lets Rakuten Mobile customers access self-service features by voice or text.

"With Rakuten Cloud Platform, we are creating an innovative telco cloud platform that will drive a better AI-based customer engagement experience," said Tareq Amin, representative director, executive vice president, and chief technology officer at Rakuten Mobile, in a statement. "We're excited about the innovations this will enable Rakuten Group companies to deliver and the potential for bringing it to organizations globally to leverage via Rakuten Cloud Platform."

"Our investment in cloud-native technologies and laser-focus on outcome-driven verticalized solutions allows us to partner with some of the world's most innovative companies to integrate Nuance technologies in a flexible way, embedding into client workflows and safeguarding consumer data," said Joe Petro, chief technology officer at Nuance, in a statement. "The recent virtual assistant deployment with Rakuten Mobile on RCP is evidence of that, and we see great potential for Nuance's AI solutions as organizations around the globe look to advance customer experiences and drive new revenue opportunities through cloud-based infrastructures and 5G networks."