“We thought of creating a smarter and freer working environment where workers can concentrate on their creative works to create higher value, rather than spending time repeatedly doing unimportant things,” said Nguyen Phi Hiep, CEO of sPhoton, a startup.

Nguyen Phi Hiep, CEO of sPhoton

Hiep and his team have created a ‘virtual assistant’, a friendly chatbot integrated on the sPhoton Chat messaging platform. Every day, when turning on the machine, users will hear ‘Chao ngay moi, minh giup gi cho moi nguoi?” (Hello, how can I help you?).

The chatbot can help users remember appointments, remind them of working schedules, review periodic reports to senior managers, and even order lunch for the company.

Chatbot is a basic form of artificial intelligence (AI). It works independently and can automatically answer questions or handle situations. The scope and complexity of chatbots are determined by the algorithms of their creators - from a ring in accordance with built scripts to self-learning during interactions with users.

With natural language processing capability, sPhoton has created a robot that communicates in Vietnamese language in a very stable and easy way. The CEO of the company said their product strives to be useful.

With natural language processing capability, sPhoton has created a robot that communicates in Vietnamese language in a very stable and easy way. The CEO of the company said their product strives to be useful. 

But the developers of sPhoton, who were the members of xLab, a club of students and scientific researchers, which comprised the most excellent students of Hanoi University of Science and Technology, had to spend four years on developing the product.

It just introduced the products in February 2020.

Why a chat platform? The founders of sPhoton want something simple, easy to use and friendly. They want everything to be based on the communication platform, instead of specific business management software.

Able to do many things, the chatbot of sPhoton just holds a supportive role. The ‘virtual assistant’ is still not intelligent enough to handle complicated tasks such as suggesting solutions to managers in case an officer continuously meets difficulties in implementing their duties.

Vietnam-made chatbots have some advantages over foreign made products. They use Vietnamese language and have lower operation costs, and maintenance service is available anytime.

sPhoton believes that non-tech fuels and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), accounting for more than 98 percent of domestic enterprises, could be the potential clients. 

Thanh Lich

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