Latest news with #Jotform
Forbes
15-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
4 Ways Businesses Should Be Using AI Chatbots Now
Photo by Growtika on Unsplash AI chatbots may resemble their old, less-intelligent predecessors, but appearances are where the similarities end. Rather than operating off of a narrow (and often unhelpful) script, AI chatbots use natural language processing (NLP) to offer nuanced responses to complicated questions. At my company, Jotform, we've been going full steam ahead on our AI-powered chatbots and have discovered a slew of interesting ways they can help us serve our customers better. While we initially assumed most users would rely on them for customer support, the data has actually revealed several other uses we didn't expect. Let's dig into them. Customer Service As mentioned above, customer support is the marquee offering of AI chatbots, and it's worth talking about. Customers have come to expect lightning-fast response times at every hour. The chatbots of old may not have slept, but they also weren't very helpful. How many times have you painstakingly typed a question into the input field, only to be met with a series of canned, useless responses that did nothing to resolve your query? Today's chatbots, in contrast, can engage in meaningful, multi-turn conversations—answering complex questions, handling follow-ups, and even escalating issues when necessary. They don't just regurgitate a fixed script; they respond based on the user's actual needs. Anyone running a business should instantly see the value of having an automated support staff of highly capable chatbots. Take the media hosting service Photobucket, for example: After implementing their customer service-based AI agents, the company has seen a three percent increase in customer satisfaction and a 17 percent improvement in first resolution times. That means fewer frustrated customers and fewer support tickets passed on to human staff. Lead Generation With AI chatbots, businesses no longer have to wait for users to start a conversation. Instead, they're able to capture the information up front—sometimes before the user even makes the first move. We noticed this trend especially when analyzing AI agents embedded on websites. Instead of passively waiting to respond, many bots kick things off with a question like: 'Can I get your email in case we get disconnected?' It's a soft, helpful ask, but it's also a strategic one. In the course of chatting with a customer, chatbots can also collect useful information like pages visited, geolocation, and preferences. Lots of entrepreneurs are getting wise to this inventive use of their embedded chatbots. One poster on the EntrepreneurRideAlong subreddit commented that they're 'getting way more leads through the chatbot than we ever did with static forms.' 'My theory is that chat feels more immediate and interactive to visitors,' they added. 'They're more likely to engage, whereas with a form they might think 'they probably won't get back to me for a while' and just bounce.' Our data has led us to the same conclusion. Even better, chatbots can then pass along this valuable data to marketing teams, who can use it to identify trends and consumer insights they may not have had before. New Ways To Search There's been a lot of chatter about how AI is replacing traditional search, but how about all the ways it can be used to find information on a single website? For example, a close friend who is planning a wedding recently complained to me about the lack of pricing transparency on venues' websites. Sometimes, the information wasn't there at all; other times, it was buried so deep in a labyrinth of dropdown menus it was exasperating to find. Instead of going on a wild goose chase for answers that may not even exist, AI chatbots can help by instantly pinpointing the information you're looking for. For example, a visitor might type, 'What's your return policy?' or 'Do you offer enterprise pricing?' Instead of being taken to a generic FAQ page, they receive a direct, conversational response. Navigation Closely related to on-site search—but distinct in its purpose—is the role of AI agents in website navigation. While search is about finding specific answers or content, navigation is about directing users to the appropriate place. Think about how often visitors land on a website, unsure of where to start. Take financial service sites—with separate sections dedicated to disparate functions like paying bills, making trades, or just looking up an account balance, navigating them can be tricky and frustrating. An AI agent can step in as a digital guide, asking a simple question like 'What are you looking to do today?' and then directing the user to the correct page—whether it's to schedule a payment, review recent transactions, or open a new account. AI chatbots are increasingly indispensable as customer service agents. But that's hardly where their use ends. For us, they've also proven to be effective lead generators, savvy search guides and navigation experts that helpfully get users where they want to go. As AI technology continues to evolve, businesses that embrace these expanded capabilities won't just improve the customer experience—they'll gain a competitive edge.
Entrepreneur
13-07-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship Is All About Innovation — and AI Can Help
If there's one trait every founder needs, it's a willingness to experiment. Today, experimentation is easier and more accessible than ever thanks to AI. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. I've always been a tinkerer. If I weren't, there's almost no chance I'd be an entrepreneur. When I released my first product in college, my goal wasn't to make money — it was to build something for the sake of it. I saw a problem and decided to see if I could create a solution. Turns out, I could. Not everything I've built has worked out the way I wanted it to, but that's okay. The tinkerer mindset doesn't require a 100 percent success rate. You might think that my love of experimenting would have been tempered once my business grew. But actually, I've only become more firm in my conviction that great things come from those who tinker. Even better? Recent leaps in AI capabilities have only made tinkering easier. Here's why. Related: How to Prepare Your Small Business for the Next Wave of AI Innovation Why experimentation is essential If there's one trait every founder needs, it's a willingness to experiment. Great products aren't born fully formed — they're shaped by trial, error, feedback and iteration. When I launched Jotform, I wasn't trying to build a company. I was trying to solve a problem. That curiosity led to our first tagline, "The Easiest Form Builder." I obsessed over usability and kept tweaking the product until it felt effortless to use. That mindset — build, test, improve — has guided every version since. I often tell the founders I mentor: You don't need to get it perfect, you just need to get it in front of people. The feedback you get will tell you what to fix, what to double down on and what to scrap. My 50/50 rule — spending half your time on product and half on growth — is built on the same principle. You're constantly experimenting on two fronts: what you're building and how you're getting it into users' hands. It's a push-pull dynamic that inherently requires trial and error. Why AI is a tinkerer's dream Here's the thing about tinkering: It doesn't work under duress. Today, experimentation is easier and more accessible than ever thanks to AI. In the past, it was extremely difficult to carve out the time and space to be creative, because who has several uninterrupted hours just to play around with a project that may ultimately yield nothing? For me, early mornings and late nights were the golden times for working on my startup, when I didn't have to focus on my day job or any other obligations nagging for my attention. For many people, those precious off-hours are still the ticket to unlocking creative thinking. But instead of wasting them on exasperating tasks like debugging code, designing a UI or writing copy from scratch, you can offload those responsibilities to an AI assistant. Want to build a landing page, translate it and generate five headline variations? That's now a 30-minute exercise, not a full weekend. That kind of efficiency is a game-changer. It lowers the cost of experimentation, and more importantly, it removes the friction between idea and execution. You can move straight from "what if?" to "let's find out," which is exactly what tinkering is all about. Related: Why Smart Entrepreneurs Let AI Do the Heavy Business Lifting Amplifying creativity There's a misconception that AI will do all the work for you. It won't. AI, at least not yet, cannot replicate human creativity and ingenuity. What it will do is eliminate the bottlenecks that keep you from doing your best work. Recently, I returned from an eight-month break from my business. I'd had my third child, and I wanted to take the opportunity to spend time with my family. Once back in the office, I realized I didn't want to return to the way I'd been working before, getting pulled in several directions at once and being too stretched thin to focus on what I cared about. Instead, I decided to dramatically limit the areas of my business I would focus on. Recently, that's meant working with our architect to design a new office space. It's something I enjoy, but couldn't fully commit to previously thanks to a pileup of other distractions. In the past, I might have had to let it go — just because I wanted to be involved didn't mean I'd have the bandwidth to do it. It was a project that interested me, but didn't require my participation. That's the thing about tinkering — most of it isn't strictly necessary. Since I've returned, I've been able to focus on blueprints and layout concepts for uninterrupted stretches of time. How? One reason is that I have an executive team that has been able to take over many of the day-to-day functions that previously absorbed my attention. The second is because I've deputized AI to take on some of my most annoying, time-consuming busywork. For example, I've refined my already-effective email filtering technique even further with the help of an AI agent, which autonomously sorts and in some cases, even responds to routine queries so I don't have to. That means less time fighting the onslaught of emails, more time investing my energy where it counts. My goal isn't to have AI figure out window placements for me, make hiring decisions or determine the strategic direction of my company. Instead, it's to clear my plate of the time-consuming tasks that have distracted me from what I want to do. For entrepreneurs, AI has afforded us more of the most valuable resource we have: the space to tinker. And in my experience, that's where everything worthwhile happens.
Geeky Gadgets
02-07-2025
- Geeky Gadgets
Transform Boring MS PowerPoint Presentations Into AI-Powered Interactive Experiences
Have you ever sat through a dull, static PowerPoint presentation, struggling to stay engaged as slide after slide blurred together? It's a common frustration, but what if there were a way to completely transform those lifeless decks into dynamic, AI-powered experiences that not only captivate but also interact with your audience in real time? With tools like Jotform Presentation Agents, this isn't just a futuristic dream—it's a reality. By combining the familiar format of PowerPoint with innovative AI features like real-time Q&A and guided navigation, you can elevate your presentations from forgettable to unforgettable, making sure your message resonates long after the final slide. In this quick-start guide by Kevin Stratvert, you'll discover how to turn your PowerPoint presentations into interactive, AI-enhanced experiences that are as engaging as they are effective. From uploading existing slides to using AI narration and embedding actionable forms, we'll explore the tools and techniques that make this transformation seamless. Whether you're preparing a client pitch, a training session, or a global webinar, Jotform Presentation Agents offers customization options and analytics to tailor your content and refine your delivery. Imagine a presentation that not only speaks to your audience but listens to them, too—this guide will show you how to make that happen. AI Presentation Tools Key Features of Interactive AI Presentations Jotform Presentation Agents offers a suite of AI-powered features designed to elevate your presentations and simplify your workflow. These features include: AI Narration: The platform provides narration for your slides in a professional or personalized tone, making sure your message is delivered clearly and effectively. The platform provides narration for your slides in a professional or personalized tone, making sure your message is delivered clearly and effectively. Real-Time Q&A: During the presentation, viewers can ask questions, and the AI agent responds instantly with accurate and relevant answers. During the presentation, viewers can ask questions, and the AI agent responds instantly with accurate and relevant answers. Guided Navigation: The AI agent guides your audience through the presentation, helping them stay engaged and making sure they fully understand the content. These capabilities create a seamless and interactive experience, making your presentations more engaging, accessible, and memorable. Steps to Get Started Creating an interactive presentation with Jotform Presentation Agents is a straightforward process. The platform offers multiple options to suit your specific needs: Upload Existing Files: You can import PowerPoint, PDF, or Google Slides directly into the platform, allowing you to repurpose existing content effortlessly. You can import PowerPoint, PDF, or Google Slides directly into the platform, allowing you to repurpose existing content effortlessly. Text-to-Presentation Generation: If starting from scratch, you can generate slides by simply providing a text prompt, allowing quick and efficient content creation. This flexibility ensures that whether you are adapting existing materials or building a presentation from the ground up, the platform integrates seamlessly into your workflow. Using AI to Create Interactive PowerPoint Presentations Watch this video on YouTube. Below are more guides on AI-Powered Presentations from our extensive range of articles. Customization Options for Tailored Presentations One of the standout features of Jotform Presentation Agents is its ability to personalize presentations to align with your goals and audience preferences. Customization options include: AI Voice and Tone: Choose from a range of tones, such as professional, friendly, or conversational, to match your brand identity or audience expectations. Choose from a range of tones, such as professional, friendly, or conversational, to match your brand identity or audience expectations. Editable Scripts: Modify AI-generated scripts to ensure your messaging is precise, relevant, and aligned with your objectives. Modify AI-generated scripts to ensure your messaging is precise, relevant, and aligned with your objectives. Predefined Questions: Add questions to guide your audience's focus and encourage meaningful interaction during the presentation. Add questions to guide your audience's focus and encourage meaningful interaction during the presentation. Embedded Forms: Include forms for lead collection, audience feedback, or signups, making your presentation actionable and results-driven. These customization options empower you to create a presentation that is not only engaging but also tailored to meet your specific objectives and audience needs. Enhancing the AI Agent's Knowledge Base The AI agent's capabilities can be expanded and refined to better serve your audience. While the default knowledge base is derived from your slides, you can enhance its performance by providing additional materials, such as: Text documents, Web links, Files and Custom Q&A pairs. By incorporating supplementary resources, the AI agent becomes more adept at handling audience inquiries, delivering accurate and contextually relevant responses. This ensures a more interactive and informative experience for your viewers. Sharing and Analytics for Improved Engagement Distributing your interactive presentation is both simple and versatile. Jotform Presentation Agents provides multiple sharing options, including: Direct links, Email invitations and Embedding the presentation on your website. Once shared, the platform offers detailed analytics to help you measure audience engagement. Metrics such as time spent on individual slides, questions asked, and interaction levels provide valuable insights. These analytics enable you to refine your presentations, better understand your audience's preferences, and improve future content delivery. Applications and Benefits Jotform Presentation Agents is a versatile tool that offers significant advantages across various use cases. Its applications and benefits include: Global Accessibility: Presentations are accessible 24/7, making them ideal for international or asynchronous audiences. Presentations are accessible 24/7, making them ideal for international or asynchronous audiences. Enhanced Engagement: AI-driven interactivity ensures a more engaging and immersive experience for diverse viewers. AI-driven interactivity ensures a more engaging and immersive experience for diverse viewers. Time Efficiency: Automating tasks such as narration and Q&A saves time while maintaining a professional and polished presentation. Automating tasks such as narration and Q&A saves time while maintaining a professional and polished presentation. Versatility: Suitable for a wide range of scenarios, including webinars, client pitches, employee training, and educational sessions. By automating and enhancing critical aspects of your presentation, Jotform Presentation Agents enables you to communicate more effectively, reach broader audiences, and achieve your goals with greater efficiency. Transforming Presentations with AI Jotform Presentation Agents represents a significant step forward in how presentations are created and delivered. By integrating AI-powered interactivity and automation, the platform enables you to transform static slides into dynamic, engaging experiences. From real-time Q&A and AI narration to customizable scripts and detailed analytics, this tool equips you with everything needed to deliver impactful presentations. Whether you are addressing a global audience, conducting a training session, or pitching to clients, Jotform Presentation Agents provides the tools to communicate effectively, engage your audience, and achieve your objectives with ease. Media Credit: Kevin Stratvert Filed Under: AI, Guides, Top News Latest Geeky Gadgets Deals Disclosure: Some of our articles include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, Geeky Gadgets may earn an affiliate commission. Learn about our Disclosure Policy.
Forbes
26-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
The Best Way To Improve Your AI Agent? Use It Yourself
Photo by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash As an entrepreneur, my goal has always been to build products I want to use. Back when I was working at a media company in New York, I created a form builder that saved tons of time. I used it myself because it made my life easier—it also served as the basis for what would become my company, Jotform. The world looks a lot different now than it did in 2006, when Jotform was born. If you'd told me then that in 2025, we'd release an AI agent capable of talking with customers in a human-like way, autonomously carrying out tasks, and customizing forms on its own, I probably wouldn't have been too surprised. Or rather, I'd be amazed by how much had changed—after all, this was back before the iPhone had even made its debut. But the idea that I'd be leveraging the latest technology to make tedious tasks simpler? That's right up my alley. To this day, I believe my form builder became a hit because I used it myself—that meant I also experienced its bugs and imperfections, and saw opportunities for features I thought would make it better. Fast forward to this year, when we released our new AI agents. Not only are our agents super helpful for our customers, but they're incredibly helpful for us, too. Of the 5,000 conversations our agents engage in daily, 2,000 are with Jotform support staff. This high level of engagement throughout the company presents us with an amazing opportunity to improve our product. Here's why. We Understand Areas For Improvement As a business owner, I've always encouraged our teams to use our own products. After all, if we're not using it, it's hard to get a sense of the issues our customers are facing. While there were obviously occasions where we would use our own forms organically, we mostly had to contrive use cases ourselves. With our AI agents, the opposite is true. We're using them not because we have to, but because they're a huge time-saver for our customer support staff. Using our agents as much as we are has been instrumental in allowing us to understand areas for improvement. For example, in reviewing the conversations our agents are having, I've noticed its responses are good, but they're not always able to autonomously solve a problem without a human member of the support team intervening. If a customer has a localized technical issue—say their access was suspended and they need it restored, or they have a very specific question about their account—a human team member will ultimately still need to get involved to address the problem. Knowing this now, we're committed to dedicating an entire support team to making sure the agent can solve such problems on its own. If you're not really using your own product and getting to know it, issues that arise are mostly theoretical. We do our best to address problems and add features our customers want, of course, but our understanding of their effectiveness is incomplete. But by using our agents ourselves, on a daily basis, we really understand any pain points our customers are having—because we're having them, too. We're Training Agents In Real Time One of the greatest debates in the tech world now is the extent to which agents' actual utility will outweigh the hype. While there have been plenty of early adopters, the truth is that the general public isn't clamoring to try them out—for the most part, people just want their problems solved. According to data from Salesforce, 54 percent of consumers don't care how they're interacting with a company, as long as their problems are fixed quickly. Our user base is still growing, but because we're using our own AI agents so much, we're simultaneously training them to be more effective. The beauty of generative AI is that it learns from every new query it tackles, improving upon and refining its answers continuously. That we're constantly engaging our agents with real data from real customer inquiries means our agents are getting better at their jobs with each passing day. Our agents aren't perfect yet. No one expects them to be. But we're reviewing every single one of the conversations they're having, identifying problems and improving iteratively. We're carefully monitoring performance, identifying mistakes, tracking patterns and providing new learning data. As agentic AI gains traction and more users sign up, our AI will continue evolving, offering smarter, faster, and more accurate solutions while reducing the burden on human support teams. We're Training Our Human Employees, Too As AI takes over mundane tasks, our customer support teams will be able to use their time solving more interesting problems. But as agents get more adept at handling support on their own, our teams' responsibilities will shift to training, effectively upskilling them for a new AI-powered world. This not only helps them grow their own skills, it also keeps them energized and engaged. Without a doubt, the best way to build a great product is to use it yourself and to keep refining it based on real-world feedback. By embedding AI agents into our own daily operations, we're not just improving the technology; we're shaping the future of customer support.
Entrepreneur
19-06-2025
- Business
- Entrepreneur
I'm So Glad My Company Never Went Viral — Here's Why
Growth that lasts isn't about the moment or the initial hype. It's about what happens in the months and years that follow. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. A long time ago, in the days when my startup was still in its infancy, I craved what I saw other entrepreneurs enjoying: Major, explosive growth. The kind that snatches headlines and earns thousands — no, millions — of shares on social media. The kind of growth that fuels conference panels and cocktail hour gossip. Now? I am so glad my company never had that. As scintillating as a big launch day story can be, there's a hidden cost to going viral too soon. Think about it: How many companies have you seen rocket into the stratosphere like a firework, only to flame out just as quickly? At my company, Jotform, we recently had a major launch. In the months since we released our new product, the outcome has been exactly as I'd wanted: a slow, steady climb in usage. Why would I want that over a viral hit? Let me explain. Related: Startup Culture Prioritizes Scaling Fast — Here's Why That's Actually a Huge Mistake The pitfalls of explosive growth To answer why an entrepreneur would hope for anything less than a runaway smash, let's look back on what happened to the exercise bike company Peloton during the pandemic, when usage surged. The company reacted by pushing its manufacturing capabilities beyond its limits, causing quality and customer satisfaction to take a hit. When the pandemic finally waned, the company was left with a bloated inventory and supply capacity it no longer needed. SaaS companies don't generally have the issues associated with producing physical products, but the problems are often similar: When usage skyrockets overnight, your systems get tested in ways they weren't designed for. Support tickets pile up. Bugs get exposed in the worst possible ways — publicly, and all at once. Teams scramble, often abandoning longer-term thinking in favor of short-term firefighting. Even worse, early users drawn in by hype might not be long-term customers, which means the feedback you're acting on isn't actually helpful. Too much growth, too quickly, decimates your ability to listen closely and refine your product in response to real needs. Improving your product gradually One of the most valuable things about slow growth is that it offers you the opportunity to improve your product. At Jotform, we released our AI agents and immediately got to work tweaking them based on the feedback we received. I know what we're doing is working, because I'm watching their use increase over time. Steady growth gives you space to iterate, not just react. I understand it can be difficult to resist the urge to meet demand, but I caution against rushing. Writing for Harvard Business Review, Gary P. Pisano explains that "good growth strategists do not fall into the trap of thinking they can grow fast now and fix things later. They recognize that more-measured growth over a sustained period will lead to much better financial results than explosive growth for a short period of time." I completely agree — the "move fast and break things" ethos is a recipe for overwhelm and loss of trust. A more disciplined approach lets you catch issues early, optimize systems before they're overburdened, and prioritize features that truly matter to your core users, not just the loudest voices. In our case, it meant identifying which use cases were gaining traction and which needed further support, all without burning out the team or breaking what we'd built. Related: Don't Be Fooled By Overnight Success Stories — Building a Business Takes More Time Than You Think. Here's How to Play the Long Game. Learn about actual customer use When growth is gradual, you get something far more valuable than vanity metrics: insight into how people actually use your product. Not how you hope they'll use it or how they describe it in a survey, but real behavior, in real environments. At Jotform, one of our biggest discoveries after launching our AI agents was that usage wasn't just happening inside our platform. It was happening on users' own websites. We started seeing thousands of daily views coming from embedded agents — far more than we initially expected. That told us that customers weren't just experimenting with the tool; they were integrating it into their businesses. We saw custom buttons, branded interfaces and even AI agents connected to WhatsApp. These weren't casual users — they were adapting our product to their needs in creative, sometimes surprising ways. This information has been instrumental in helping us chart our path forward from here. Building for the long-term When you grow slowly, you don't just learn more — you build better. You're able to lay a strong foundation that can support future scaling, instead of racing to patch things together after the fact. At Jotform, that meant making smart decisions about infrastructure, support systems and product design based on real patterns rather than assumptions. It also meant giving our team the time to build sustainably, without chaos. When the next wave of users arrives — and it will — we'll be ready, not scrambling, because growth that lasts isn't about the moment or the initial hype. It's about what happens in the months and years that follow.
