Intelligent conference call information agents
A system is disclosed that integrates with conferencing platforms and provides real-time information by having intelligent agents running on a networked server that is integrated with the conferencing platform. The intelligent agents may be customized or adapted “on the fly” or be preprogrammed by a user or caller to examine real-time data feeds or actively search websites and other information sources. The agents then report any relevant information or content to the system for injection or broadcast into the conference.
1. A method comprising:
a conference bridge connecting a live communication between at least a first participant and a second participant over a network, the live communication including content;
an agent server executing an agent during the live communication;
the agent determining selected information from the live communication;
the agent searching a data source for the selected information, the selected information being relevant to the content of the live communication; and
in response to locating the selected information, the agent providing the selected information to both the first participant and the second participant during the live communication, wherein the conference bridge broadcasts the selected information to the first and second participants during the live communication.
2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the live communication is a conference call, wherein the selected information is provided to a conference bridge associated with the live communication, and wherein the data source is in the form of a syndicated feed.
3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the agent searching a data source for selected information comprises the substeps:
receiving the content of the live communication;
converting at least a portion of the content of the live communication to a text equivalent;
parsing the text equivalent to locate a set of keywords; and
searching the data source using the keywords to locate the selected information.
4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the search parameters are selected by at least one of the first and second participants before the live communication is initiated.
5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising: configuring the processor to perform the search, wherein the configuration parameters comprise a plurality of a conference bridge number, a time to call into the conference bridge, a prerecorded message to be relayed during the live communication, the search parameters, and data fees to be used for the data source.
6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the first participant is associated with first and second agents, wherein the first agent is configured to locate selected first information using a first set of keywords, wherein the second agent is configured to locate selected second information using a second set of keywords, and wherein the first and second agents are connected simultaneously to the live communication.
7. The method of claim 1 , wherein, in the agent providing the located information, the selected information is also provided over a channel different from the channel being used for the bearer messages for the live communication.
8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
creating a library of customized agents; and
rating the library of customized agents to identify the best agents.
9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the data source is from a previously enabled agent call.
10. The method of claim 9 , wherein the previous agent enabled call is divided into sections that are tagged for later retrieval, wherein a first section of the agent enabled call is tagged public and searchable by anyone, and wherein a second section of the agent enabled call is tagged as private and only accessible by callers who participated in the agent enabled call.
11. A conferencing system, comprising:
a conference bridge configured to conference together at least first and second participants over a network; and
an agent server in communication with the conference bridge, the agent server operable to execute an agent, wherein the agent is operable to:
call the conference bridge to participate in the conference call;
receive content of the conference call;
determine selected information from the content;
during the conference call, search a data source for the selected information, the selected information being relevant to the content of the conference call, and wherein the data source is from a previously enabled agent call; and
in response to locating the selected information during the search, broadcast the located selected information to at least one of the first and second participants through the conference bridge.
12. The conferencing system of claim 11 , wherein the selected information is provided to the conference bridge and wherein the data source is in the form of a syndicated feed from an Internet aggregator.
13. The conferencing system of claim 11 , wherein the search operation comprises the sub-operations:
receive the content of the conference call;
convert at least a portion of the content of the conference call to a text equivalent; parse the text equivalent to locate a set of keywords; and
search the data source using the keywords to locate the selected information.
14. The conferencing system of claim 11 , wherein the first participant is associated with first and second agents, wherein the first agent is configured to locate selected first information using a first set of keywords, wherein the second agent is configured to locate selected second information using a second set of keywords, and wherein the first and second agents are connected simultaneously to the conference call.
15. The conferencing system of claim 11 , wherein the providing operation comprises broadcasting the selected information to communication devices associated with at least one of the first and second participants.
16. The conferencing system of claim 11 , wherein the broadcasting operation also comprises transmitting the selected information over a channel different from the channel being used for the bearer messages for the conference call.
17. The conferencing system of claim 11 , wherein the agent is configured to perform the search before the conference call and wherein the configuration parameters comprise a plurality of a conference bridge number, a time to call into the conference bridge, a prerecorded message to be relayed during the live communication, the search parameters, and data fees to be used for the data source.
18. A method, comprising:
transmitting, by a conference bridge and over a network, a first audio output stream, from a first participant communication device to a second participant communication device, and a second audio output stream, from the second participant communication device to the first participant communication device;
identifying, by an information agent executed by an agent server, at least a first keyword in at least one of the first and second audio output streams;
searching, by the information agent, a syndicated feed for at least the first keyword to provide selected information; and
broadcasting, while the conference call is connected, the selected information to both the first and second participant communication devices over the conference bridge.
19. The method of claim 18 , wherein the selected information is provided by the conference bridge to the at least one of the first and second participant communication devices.
20. The method of claim 18 , wherein the selected information is also provided by a channel different from the channels used for communications.