Baton Rouge, La. (October 25, 2017)— MESH, a Baton Rouge-based strategic marketing firm that focuses on the visual and verbal communication of brands, and Not Rocket Science (NRS), a Covington-based software development firm offering cognitive business solutions, today announced a partnership to create “Branded Bots”—artificial intelligence (AI) applications for businesses and consumers. Their focus: delivering a brand personality through various channels and platforms such as Alexa, Cortana, Siri, IBM Watson, mobile apps, websites, and social media to provide an interface for both internal and external communication.

Why embark on a Branded Bot solution for businesses? A recent study by the International Data Corporation (IDC) predicted worldwide spending on digital transformation technologies is expected to reach $1.2 trillion in 2017 and could reach $2 trillion by 2020. MESH and NRS aim to develop Bot solutions that provide a natural language interface between a business and its customers, an interface that not only provides an efficient and knowledgeable presence to represent the business but also operates within the framework of the existing brand personality. The natural outflow of this technology will be the streamlining of business operations through software integration, augmentation of the workforce, and participation in the evolving technology landscape.

“We’ve always believed our clients are looking to create a 365-degree connection with their customers,” said Darron Goodgion, President of Not Rocket Science. “Partnering with a top creative agency like MESH allows my company to focus on the technology side, and the agency to bring creativity to the Bots—what they should look like and sound like, and infuse brand personality like humor into its communication style.”

Enhancing Internal Communication

For companies using the technology internally for operations, employees will be able to ask the Bot anything related to the company. Instead of just a “canned” answer, responses will be created in the voice of the brand. “A good example of this is the Bot we’re developing for our agency that focuses on software integration and operations, linking together our project management, time tracking, and CRM systems,” said Taylor Bennett, CEO, and Founder of MESH. “And from an external perspective, our Bot will be an encounter with our brand, sharing brand personality and information about the agency to our partners, clients, and potential clients.”

External Communication

“We have always known that technology will continue to affect marketing and communications,” commented Bennett. “We’ve seen it with branded websites, chat features, social media, etc, which have become a necessity for brands. One of the fascinating things this technology allows us to do is continue to develop streamlined external communications for customers, giving them data and information on the company with a dose of the brand personality.”

Looking ahead

“We believe the next big evolution will be the development of Bots within specific industries, something we are working on as we speak with a branded empathetic bot that is helping prepare a child’s mind for trauma in partnership with PrepBiz and IBM,” said Goodgion.

MESH and Not Rocket Science are focused on creating entities that are a human interface to companies and brands. By building back-end intelligence, essentially a virtual person is created—a consistent channel to get information.

“To some degree, businesses need to be aware that they are going to have to put resources into omnichannel initiatives, and that they need to start this journey now. We are excited to take clients through our proven process that is already underway,” said Bennett.

About MESH

MESH is a nationally recognized communications agency specializing in the visual and verbal brand representation and strategic solutions. For more information, visit https://www.meshbr.com/.

About Not Rocket Science

Not Rocket Science’s mission is to ignite transformative business change through the innovative use of emerging technologies. For more information, visit http://www.notrs.com/.