This is a sponsored ‘Breakfast Briefing’ (08.45 – 10.15) with all proceeds from ticket sales going to the BBC’s Children In Need charity. So, if you’d like to learn more about chatbots and virtual assistants and how they are changing the way we work, AND enjoy a sumptuous breakfast AND contribute to a good cause, get your tickets (a bargain at £32) from the WorkPlace Week website. But hurry, places are limited!

Way back in 1966, the natural language processing program, ELIZA, played the role of a digital psychologist. This early chatbot was capable of “listening” to you as you shared your life story, delivering mostly coherent, yet vague canned responses to whatever you typed in.

Chatbots have come a long way since then. Many in the current generation are equipped with artificial intelligence (AI), making them more powerful than ever. And today, chatbots are used by organisations to listen to and respond to requests, find the answers to commonly asked questions, or even help us order a pizza.

Meanwhile, using our smart devices we can ask intelligent assistants, such as Apple Siri, Microsoft Cortana, Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa, to set up events in our calendars, dictate emails, play from millions of songs, turn off the lights, and more. And the more we talk to them, the better intelligent assistants get at understanding and serving us, thanks to AI.

Chatbot technology is becoming commonplace in our homes, on our phones and even in our vehicles – but what about in the workplace? This dedicated breakfast briefing will explore the contemporary world of chatbots and digital assistants and their increasing utility for automating routine tasks. Can they be relied upon to do some of the knowledge management ‘heavy lifting’, and if so, what will the future workplace look like?

This event would be of particular interest to and benefit the following roles and functions:

• HR
• Customer Support
• Community Managers
• CIO’s
• Innovators
• Knowledge Managers
• Legal/Paralegal

The key learning points from this event will be:

• Understand the difference between chatbots and virtual/digital assistants
• Understand the current and emerging role of chatbots in the workplace
• Identify the skills, resources and costs of developing a chatbot
• See/interact with a new workplace chatbot developed by Norton Rose Fulbright (legal company)
• Plenary discussion about how chatbots may shape the future of work