Clara from Clara Labs is a hybrid chatbot, created to effectively schedule meetings, reply to mails, and carry out other such daily tasks, with speed and precision. Wherever, the bot cannot locate an adequate response via machine learning, it redirects the action to a human executive.
“If Clara isn’t sure what kind of an appointment it is, we may push out an email that says, ‘Can you confirm this is a coffee meeting?’” said Clara Labs CEO, Maran Nelson. “I’ve heard people say we’re building artificial intelligence, but really we’re just building a relationship that you can depend on. It’s just a thesis for building really intelligent software.”
Primarily, Clara has two major elements – business collaboration and candidate screening & sourcing.
Inside Clara – toolbox and the ideas shaping the product
Clara was built after two years of relentless research and at a funding of $5 million, at Clara Labs’ San Francisco office. The company’s deeply optimistic about Clara’s ability to cut through the market, and gain a definite competitive edge, transforming how workplaces operate, reducing timelines and managing iterative processes.
Clara is billed at $500 a month, for firms with up to 25 employees, and works on a simple model – based on requirements and work scenarios, an executive is assigned a ‘Clara’, with its own email; you can choose to rename Clara, add a surname, humanising the interaction.
Clara works and communicates completely via email, and in natural language, from start to finish. You can add her to any of the threads on scheduling – and she will remain as part of the ‘cc’ bar, managing everyday tasks, that are repetitive and require minimal human involvement. Further, Clara can also access online calendars, simplifying a plethora of regular tasks, such as calling, lunch plans, coffee breaks, meetings, and other sundry office activities.
What’s more, Clara is equipped to address conversations with your contacts, offering time and venue suggestions, on the basis of your predetermined preferences. An executive has to simply speak with Clara, as you would with a human assistant.
As mentioned, when Clara will find an email that’s too complex or critical for her to manage, she will pass on the matter to one of the company’s many work-from-home employees, spread across the globe, who will then, step in. Importantly, Clara’s makers have clearly marked Clara’s abilities, and its breadth of functionalities; beyond a point, Clara won’t try and answer a difficult query, choosing instead to focus on simpler, regular tasks. This hybrid approach makes Clara different from other virtual assistants, such as the ones by Amazon, Google, or X.AI. And, even as an email is addressed by a human executive – Clara will learn from the same, and add it to her bandwidth.
Opinions – is Clara a genuine differentiator?
In a landscape that’s flooded with chatbots and virtual assistants, Clara stands out for its simplicity and the pragmatism of its design. With new upgrades and add-ons, Clara’s future looks bright and brimming with possibility.
What’s your experience with Virtual Assistants? Have you tried Clara? Let us know in the comments below.
