How will the workday change as a result of the latest technological leaps in the AI field? And what does the future look like for those of us who work in customer service? The answer is that no one knows for certain yet, but most agree that big changes are on the horizon.
At this point a vast majority of us have heard of ChatGPT. We know that Microsoft is making a wholehearted effort to integrate the AI technology that ChatGPT is based on in the Office suite, and in their search engine Bing. Currently Google’s search engine handles 93% of all internet searches, which generates an annual revenue of 225 billion dollars. That means that Microsoft’s AI enhanced search engine is challenging Googles primary revenue stream. Google has responded by fast tracking the launch of their chatbot Bard.
At Telia we have strong partnerships with both Google and Microsoft and look forward to continuing collaborating with them on the technological forefront. Here are a few examples of how we believe that the customer and agent experiences will become better and smarter with AI:
Seamless language independent conversations
The new chatbots converse in a way that is so natural that it sets a whole new standard for how we speak with our customers in digital channels. As an added bonus they communicate in the language of the customer’s choice such as Finish, Polish or English.
New digital colleagues to assist the contact center staff
The ChatGPT that we have seen and tested is very general and is based on data from the entire internet. But in the future we will probably have digital employees, with a more narrow scope, that are trained on specific domains, at our service throughout the workday.
Agent Assist – just got better
The agents will have access to new AI-based Agent Assist Services that will help them manage customer queries in a smarter, faster and more customer friendly way. It will be like always having access to a colleague that knows everything and that works really fast.
Voice assistants level up
Much of what we see today that generative large language models like ChatGPT can do in writing, they will also do in speech in the future. That means that there will be large conversational breakthroughs, we will see next generation’s voice assistants emerge, and an explosion of voice-controlled services.
Simpler chatbot training and dialogue design
A significant portion of that which is time consuming and cumbersome in the work with chatbots and virtual agents, such as dialogue design and training of language models, will be much smoother and simpler. We will not have to build our own text databases but can make use of the large language model’s basic capabilities and complement it with our own data to make the chatbot meet the needs of our staff and our users.
A powerful catalyst for business development and analytics
Analyzing the vast amounts of customer meetings we have every day, both personal and digital, is a walk in the park for an AI engine. The knowledge and insights that are generated can be used to simplify, speed up and optimize contact center operations.
The new technology also opens up for exciting developments in other areas:
• IVR solutions
• Smart routing
• Workforce management
• Knowledge Management.
Many signs point toward the fact that we are on the threshold of a gigantic transformation, not just for our industry, but also for many others. The technological development will enable a large number of possible improvements, but we also have to manage the risks that inevitably come along with it.
