[January 09, 2013]

Futurist John M. Smart Joins Next IT's Technical Advisory Board

Next IT, the world's leading provider of Intelligent Virtual Assistants (IVAs), today announced a partnership with foresight scholar and systems theorist John M. Smart. A technological thought leader, Smart studies machine learning, technology innovation and adoption, and the ways society can benefit from user-centric technological advancements. His knowledge of emerging software, platform, data, and communication trends will help Next IT develop its conversationally enabled IVAs to best serve the needs of today's quickly evolving marketplace.

"Intelligent Virtual Assistants are the leading edge of the new social web. They elicit customer sharing and can elevate mood and reduce stress. An assistant that quickly solves a problem for a customer, while conveying appropriate emotion, personality and stories, can build brand awareness and loyalty like nothing else," Smart stated. "Next IT is the global leader in the rapidly-growing IVA space. They have a decade of front-end and back-end ommercial-IVA experience, more satisfied clients in more IVA markets and verticals than any other company, and they know the practical value of IVAs like no one else. I'm proud to join their team of Technical Advisors and very excited to help them grow virtual-assistant adoption, ability, personalization, and loyalty in this uniquely promising time."

Smart, a professor at the University of Advancing Technology and lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School, is the founder of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, co-founder of Evo Devo Universe (an international interdisciplinary research community) and an advisor in Futures Studies and Forecasting at Ray Kurtzweil and Peter Diamandis' Singularity University.

"John has spent time discussing the conversational interface with some of most influential technologists in the world," said Denise Caron, Chief Technology Officer at Next IT. "He truly understands the promise of our core technology, and we anticipate that, with the benefit of his insights, we'll be able to push the envelope of human-machine interaction."

About Next IT

Next IT is the world's largest provider of Intelligent Virtual Assistants that help companies deliver the perfect online customer experience. Its Intelligent Virtual Assistants combine the intimacy of 1-to-1 service that customers love with the speed and accuracy of automated self-service that scales cost-effectively. Some of the world's largest organizations rely on Next IT for conversational customer care that boosts satisfaction, loyalty and revenue, including Aetna, Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, and the U.S. Army. Please visit www.NextIT.com for more information.

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