T R AV E L
I N T E R N AT I O N A L
AI IS ABOUT TO CHANGE YOUR CRUISE EXPERIENCE In a world where virtual assistants like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa connect with a smart world filled with devices, cruise ships are following suit. Meet ZOE…
MSC Bellissima
T
personal cruise assistant
of their holiday. We researched
has arrived. Just this March,
the latest connected technologies
MSC Cruises introduced its guests
and identified voice assistants and
to ZOE with the launch of its new
artificial intelligence as the way to
ship, the MSC Bellissima, and it will
meet this need, and the work on
be available on each new ship in
ZOE began.”
he world’s first virtual
“Today, customers have
the company’s fleet from now on.
increasingly high expectations
Whenever a guest on the ship has a question, all they have to do is
for connected experiences
say, “OK ZOE”, and the ship’s voice-
wherever they live, work, and now, travel,” says Sanjay Dhawan,
activated assistant will be ready to answer hundreds of questions about the cruise, provide information about onboard services, give guidance and suggestions or even help to book a service. ZOE is found in every cabin
Harman International and Samsung Electronics present ZOE.
performance tests. As an artificial
President, Connected Services
intelligence solution, ZOE is
and CTO, HARMAN – a subsidiary
designed to continue learning and
of Samsung Electronics that
developing her responses based on
developed ZOE in partnership
real guest interactions.
with MSC Cruises. “Digital
MSC Cruises assures guests
assistants and voice-recognition
in the ship, and can speak
that she is not designed to replace
technologies are transforming
seven languages. She has been
human interaction between
the opportunity to create a guest
programmed and trained to
crew and guests, but rather to
experience that is highly personal,
respond to more than 800 of the
provide guests with the flexibility
adaptable and intuitive.”
most commonly asked questions
to communicate and discover
with thousands of different
information from the comfort of
and a professional quality speaker
variants of each question. Testing
their cabins.
in the cabin are activated by your
was carried out on the conversation
Gianni Onorato, MSC Cruises’
Essentially, special microphones
voice, and ZOE also interacts with
designs, ZOE’s natural speech
CEO, comments, “There was a
the in-cabin TV. It can also connect
recognition and ability to
core guest need to be met, which
with the cruise app on your phone
transform speech into text and
was to find answers to common
directly through Bluetooth so that
back again, in addition to scores of
questions in a quick and easy way,
you can enjoy music, podcasts and
other behavioural, experiential and
enabling guests to make the most
more directly in your cabin. •
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SILVER DIGEST // AUTUMN 2019
