According to Alok Kulkarni AI chatbots and human agents are set to collaborate to deliver hyper-personalized CX. It will also follow that Artificial General Intelligence will disrupt the knowledge economy and democratize intelligence.
As how businesses will adapt to these changes, it is likely that organizations will need to evolve their CX strategies to accommodate machine customers. Customer experience (CX) refers to how a business engages with its customers at every point of their buying journey.
Alok Kulkarni is Co-Founder and CEO of Cyara and he has outlined his thoughts to Digital Journal for some key changes in 2024.
AI chatbots and human agents collaborate to deliver hyper-personalized CX
In charting variations to CX for next year, Kulkarni thinks: “In a ChatGPT-dominated future, contact centers will experience a significant transformation, with a substantial portion of the workload shifting from human interactions to AI-driven chatbots. These chatbots will offer a hyper-personalized omnichannel experience, streamlining customer interactions without the need for multiple vendors.”
He also thinks technology will evolve through the learning capabilities of AI: “While AI chatbots will handle routine tasks, human agents will retain a crucial role, particularly in scenarios requiring empathy and nuanced judgments. The democratization of empathy, made possible by ChatGPT, is a notable evolution. However, given the inherent flaws in current AI models, such as bias, hallucinations and drift, enterprises will need to continuously train and test their chatbots to ensure a seamless transformation with minimal risk and maximum customization at scale. In 2024, human agents will focus on addressing unforeseen circumstances and complex interactions, helping to reduce response times as AI bots adeptly handle changing customer needs and service demands.”
Artificial General Intelligence will disrupt the knowledge economy and democratize intelligence
Kulkarni also sees technology evolving in new and exciting ways: “We will see continued advancements in Language Models, with increased adoption by contact centres to augment human efficiency. These models, serving as humans in the loop, will gradually take on more tasks that were traditionally performed by humans. The outcomes of these interactions will serve as valuable training data, facilitating the evolving role of AI bots in contact centre operations.”
Further advances include: “We can also anticipate the maturation of Language Models, especially Large Language Models toward Artificial General Intelligence, which will significantly disrupt the knowledge economy, especially in the customer service industry. This technology’s acceleration will also lead to the democratization of intelligence–becoming as ubiquitous in customers’ lives as a cell phone–as they leverage advanced AI capabilities to enhance their daily experiences. Ethical considerations and the responsible use of AI technologies will become increasingly crucial as AI becomes more prevalent, and it will be imperative to strike the right balance between innovation and ethical frameworks to ensure fair and unbiased outcomes.”
Organizations will evolve their CX strategies to accommodate machine customers
The impact of technology will also force companies to adapt and to reflect on organisation culture, notes Kulkarni: “The emergence of machine customers in 2024 will introduce a new dimension to the customer experience, especially in the support realm. Organizations will need to adapt their support strategies to accommodate non-human economic actors. This may involve creating specialized interfaces and communication channels designed to interact with machine customers. Automation will play a crucial role in handling routine transactions and inquiries, allowing human agents to focus on more complex issues that may arise in interactions with machine customers.”
As well as automation, cybersecurity will also be impacted, according to Kulkarni: “Organizations must also heighten security measures to accurately identify and authenticate machine customer requests to guard against potential deep fakes. This is essential as building trusted relationships with human customers while ensuring efficiencies for machine customers will be paramount. Serving machine customers will require organizations to take a more proactive approach that involves developing APIs and integration capabilities for seamless communication, alongside creating self-service options tailored specifically for machine customers to enhance their overall experience.”
