MSC Cruises is aiming to take its guest services to new technological heights with the introduction of ZOE, the world’s first virtual personal cruise assistant.
Developed in partnership with HARMAN and Samsung Electronics, ZOE is a voice-enabled artificial intelligence tool found in every stateroom. ZOE can speak seven languages, answer hundreds of questions about the cruise and provide information about onboard services, guidance and suggestions or help to book a service. Guests simply say, “OK ZOE,” and she’s ready to help. The advanced voice recognition feature allows access for anyone to control and access information using only voice commands. ZOE will launch on MSC Bellissima and will then be available on each following new ship, including the upcoming MSC Grandiosa in 2019 and MSC Virtuosa in 2020.
“There was a core guest need to be met, which was to find answers to common questions in a quick and easy way, enabling guests to make the most of their vacation,” said Gianni Onorato, MSC Cruises CEO, in press materials. “We researched the latest connected technologies and identified voice assistants and artificial intelligence as the way to meet this need, and the work on ZOE began.”
To ensure ZOE could respond effectively to all guests, she has been programmed and trained to respond to more than 800 of the most commonly asked questions with thousands of different variants of each question. As an artificial intelligence solution, ZOE is designed to continue learning and developing her responses based on real guest interactions. In addition, her physical design features include audio with far field microphones and a professional quality speaker, as well as the ability to connect to phones directly through Bluetooth.
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