9 applications of natural language processing

Natural language processing (NLP or natural language processing) is a sub-discipline of artificial intelligence whose aim is to to create machines or systems capable of processing human language in written and spoken form.

Nowadays, natural language processing is one of the most talked-about areas within artificial intelligence (AI). This is due to its applications in generating coherent and detailed texts, such as intelligent chatbots which pass themselves off as real, flesh-and-blood humans in the eyes of users, and software that generates hyper-realistic photographic images from text.

In recent years, we have seen how technology has revolutionised computers’ ability to understand human language, programming languages, and even biological and chemical sequences such as DNA or protein structures. 

The latest models from AI They are using natural language processing to analyse all the meanings within an input (entered text) and, as a result, generate relevant and useful outputs (resulting text).

In this article from Euroinnova, We’re going to tell you about the current applications of natural language processing. Stay tuned and discover the latest trends in natural language processing!

Applications of natural language processing

As we’ve said, this technological breakthrough has revolutionised various fields and spurred the creation of a wide range of applications that facilitate interaction between humans and computers, improving efficiency and understanding of information. Below, we’ll tell you about some of the main applications of NLP:

Text extraction

Text extraction is an essential application of NLP that enables to identify and extract relevant information from large amounts of unstructured text, such as articles, web pages or documents.

Imagine we have a huge customer database that is organised in a somewhat haphazard way – in other words, it is unstructured. If we wanted to extract specific data such as names, the date of the last purchase, customers’ interests, how much they usually spend, and so on, natural language processing combined with artificial intelligence could enable us to extract and transfer all this data to another file quickly, without having to waste hours copying and pasting data.

Text classification

Using NLP techniques, it is possible to classify text into different categories or tags. For example, in a satisfaction survey, the NLP you can analyse participants’ responses and categorise them in terms of different emotions or levels of satisfaction, providing useful information for assessing how the customer perceives the product or service provided. 

Can you imagine if someone had to go through each response one by one and categorise them manually? In this case, the PLN whittles down what could be a mammoth task to a breeze that takes less than a minute.

Intelligent virtual assistants

Virtual assistants, such as Siri or Google Assistant – whether in chatbot or voicebot form – use NLP to understand users’ questions and commands and provide accurate and coherent responses. Such has been the development of natural language processing in the field of virtual assistants that they can sometimes be mistaken for real people due to their human-like and approachable language.

They are being used more and more frequently on company websites to to guide the user through a complex administrative or commercial process, and to automate customer service by addressing users’ most common queries.

Translation

Machine translation is another key application of NLP that enables the instant translation between different languages, promoting global communication in various fields. It is one of the earliest areas in which the influence of natural language processing has been felt from the outset.

If we had tried Google Translate 10 or 15 years ago, we would have gained a clear picture of the scale of the advances in natural language processing and neural networks. So much so that natural language processing is posing a real threat to the survival of human translation as a profession.

Spam detection

By analysing the content and context of emails, the PLN can identify common patterns in spam emails or spam and filter them automatically. 

In fact, Google uses this technology to automatically move junk emails to the spam folder when it detects words such as ‘free’, ‘discount’ or the indiscriminate use of capital letters.

Sentiment analysis

This technique focuses on the identification and classification of emotions and attitudes expressed in human language, whether in written text or spoken communication. It therefore seeks to determine what kind of emotion a text conveys.

PLN enables the analysis of the emotional tone of a text, classifying the content as positive, negative or neutral – for example, on social media and in product reviews – in order to measure user satisfaction.

More accurate search results

Search engines use PLN to understand users’ queries and display more relevant and accurate results. If you’re of a certain age, you’ll probably remember having carried out a Google search that returned rather baffling results, as they didn’t match your search intent.

This is happening less and less frequently, as Search engines are being trained using artificial intelligence and the natural language processing to provide results that are more in line with what the user is looking for. Thus, advances in NLP enable search engines to contextualise information and distinguish the subtle nuances of human language.

SEO-focused content creation

Whilst it does not entirely replace human writers or the content SEO strategies devised by humans, software such as ChatGPT or Jasper generates outputs in the form of complete articles and valuable SEO-focused information based on inputs ranging from the most general to the most specific.

This feature, which is linked to the PLN, is very useful for generating original and inspiring content ideas, as well as for lightening the workload involved in writing and structuring articles.

ChatGPT

Last but not least, we cannot conclude this article without mentioning the most popular breakthrough in artificial intelligence, which could not have become a reality without natural language processing. 

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language model which is based on the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) architecture. This model is one of the most advanced and powerful in the field of NLP.

When you interact with ChatGPT – whether through questions, commands or conversations – you are harnessing the NLP model’s ability to process and understand human language. The model analyses your input, breaks sentences down into meaningful units, interprets the meaning and generates a coherent and relevant response.