In this episode of Agony Agent, Ben McCulloch welcomes conversation design experts Ilana Meir and Peter Isaacs to tackle pressing issues faced by conversation AI designers. Ilana, a freelance conversation designer with extensive experience in AR, VR, and healthcare, and Peter, a senior conversation design advocate at Voiceflow, share insights on improving bot interactions, overcoming organisational challenges, and leveraging large language models (LLMs).

Key topics include how to navigate archaic systems when designing seamless user experiences, managing sentiment analysis in conversation design, and balancing the demands of impulsive sales teams with technical developers. They also discuss the impact of context switching for designers managing multiple brands and the challenges of fine-tuning LLMs for scalable AI solutions.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone in the conversational AI industry, offering practical advice on how to combine technical and creative expertise to build better, more human-like interactions. Whether you're refining chatbots or introducing generative AI, you'll find valuable strategies to implement right away.

00:00 .0 Intro

04:58 .5 Creating beautiful interactions with archaic solutions

11:05 .2 Learn sentiment analysis and do emotionally sensitive conversation design

17:19 .6 Educating user to speak so the NLU understands

21:17 .1 Using LLMs for intent recognition

22:54 .1 Meaningful success metrics

27:49 .1 Advocating for a holistic view between competing stakeholders

32:38 .2 Balancing Gen AI obsession with its abilities

37:30 .0 How to build a chatbot that matches ChatGPT

39:19 .6 Preparation before building

40:47 .1 Think about frameworks where conversations will happen

41:56 .6 Finetuning LLMs

44:33 .6 Making people see value of CAI and experts

46:17 .6 Is chatgpt a good way to show what CAI can do?

47:47 .1 CXD for SaaS services with LLM solutions

51:52 .1 How to advocate for your role

54:19 .6 Context switching multiple brands in a services organisation as a manager

58:24 .6 How to go beyond information provided by client when training an assistant

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