Conversational artificial intelligence is coming. The only question is how soon users will get to experience a natural, pleasant and machine-driven discussion.

Boomi, a Dell Technologies Inc. company, took a big step toward answering that question last week with the announcement that it would add conversational AI to its portfolio as a personalized way to communicate with customers and streamline business operations. The new AI solution will leverage the Boomi Bot Framework, pre-built assets that enable developers to build more effective chatbots.

It’s a bold bet by Boomi because the conversational AI experience has been in development for a while and has room for improvement in both quality and acceptance among users. A recent survey of 6,200 financial services customers found that the disclosure of a chatbot’s identity in a conversation reduced purchase rates by more than 80%.

Yet where there is room for improvement, there is also opportunity. A McKinsey & Co. report documented growing AI adoption among executives whose companies were attracted to voice enablement and natural language processing technologies across business functions. That’s where Boomi believes its partnership with Accenture PLC, which provides the key voice technology, aims to help advance the cause.

“There’s $7 million being spent on password resets with humans,” said Chris McNabb (pictured), chief executive officer of Boomi. “Where voice is your identity, you don’t need that anymore, and the benefit for organizations is huge. Let’s do a small thing, let’s try it out, let’s get it working, let’s scale it, and let’s get it to enterprises.”

McNabb spoke with John Furrier and Lisa Martin, co-hosts of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the Boomi World event in Washington, D.C. They discussed the roles Boomi and Accenture will both play in the deployment of conversational AI, how the company’s data integration technology has helped enterprise organizations, being a transformational partner and Michael Dell’s interest in Boomi’s future success (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

This week, theCUBE features Chris McNabb as its Guest of the Week.

Accenture provides voice tech

To get conversational AI to more enterprises, Boomi formed a partnership with Accenture, which has been working on more than 300 conversational interface projects, according to one of its executives. Speech interfaces from Accenture will sit on top of the Boomi Bot platform to support business rules and AI models.

When the conversational AI partnership was announced at the Boomi World conference last week, executives made it clear that Accenture will supply the voice technology side of the equation. Boomi will process and leverage the data to make the application more robust.

“Accenture brings much of the voice capabilities,” McNabb explained. “We’re all the connectivity part; we’re the workflows and the integration. It comes to us, and then we do the natural unlocking of the data inside.”

Specialty in data integration

Boomi’s responsibility for the data side is a natural outgrowth of its business model, honed over nearly two decades. The company has made a specialty of data integration, an increasingly important role as many organizations grapple with the need for information to be in sync with all systems as a single source of truth.

An example of this can be seen in the experience of the American Cancer Society Inc. The organization needed to consolidate 13 different regions, each with siloed systems, to manage over 120 data-intensive applications.

Today, information on event participants, donations, or patient referrals flows through Boomi and its integrated engine.

“It’s going to be all about data, and Boomi sits right in the middle of that,” McNabb said. “As customers put a little bit in themselves, they get a massive return out in terms of productivity and leverage that our platform is able to provide.”

Transformational role

Boomi’s core message, as it has been steadily articulated by McNabb, is that the company goes well beyond data integration. It can supply the key narrative for the total digital transformation story.

The latest announcement regarding conversational AI highlights how Boomi views its role as a transformational influence throughout the customer enterprise. This includes expanding the amount of intelligence it can provide and evolving from vision to voice-based user interfaces.

“I want to be your transformation partner,” McNabb said. “Workflows, mobile applications, data integration, warehouse problems, insights — we can get engaged in all of that. We can go end-to-end in your enterprise.”

If this is McNabb’s vision for Boomi, it is more than likely to be Michael Dell’s too. The founder and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies has made not-too-subtle hints that he is very interested in Boomi’s future success.

Michael Dell did not hesitate to trumpet Boomi’s 80% quarterly growth in an interview last year, and there continues to be speculation about Boomi’s role as a rising star inside the Dell Technologies family. If VMware Inc. is Dell’s highly successful crown jewel, Dell clearly views Boomi as the overshadowed yet increasingly valuable gemstone positioned nearby.

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Boomi World. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Boomi World 2019. Neither Boomi Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE