Reliance Jio is offering a new bot maker for small businesses to build their own video call assistants

• Reliance launched the Jio Bot at the Indian Mobile Congress 2019.
• It comes with the Jio Bot Maker app that allows businesses to set up their own AI video call bots in under 5 minutes, according to the company.
• HDFC is already testing a customised version of the Jio Bot in-house before launching it for its customers.

Reliance Jio's new native video call assistant is trying to 'democratise' artificial intelligence (AI) by enabling small business to create their own bot.

"Even the local kirana shop owner can set up his own AI bot in under 5 minutes," said one of the demo experts at India Mobile Congress 2019 (IMC 2019).

Jio video call bot can be accessed by a simple 4G phone call without asking customers to install an additional app onto their smartphones.

As per the live demo, business owners have to just sign up and choose a profile. The Jio Bot Maker will suggest a preloaded set of questions to which businesses can record their responses. They can customise their answers on the text before hand, and even augment the question if required.

Going beyond video

Some customers might not want to video call every time they have a question — even if they are just talking to a bot. So, Jio is working on giving users the versatility between video, text and voice calls.

They're developing a customer service platform for users which can switch between the three methods of communication, anytime during a customer service call.

"This also addresses privacy concerns for users who might not necessarily want to show themselves on video," explained the Jio demo expert.

So, a user can be on video and switch over to just voice if they have an unexpected visitor or even text, if they have to engage in a conversation offline. Meanwhile, the customer service bot will not be affected by these changes and will be able to answer questions in continuity.

Jio has already sold the Jio Bot to HDFC. The banking major is testing the software in-house before launching it for their customers. If you ask the assistant anything that's outside of sphere of knowledge — like an non-banking related question — he'll respond by asking you ask something else.

Jio developed the video call bot in partnership with Radisys, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries in the US.