How generative AI will revolutionise the CX landscape

In November 2022, generative AI took off seemingly overnight with the launch of ChatGPT, a chatbot that could hold conversations that were seemingly indistinguishable from those of a human. 

This development sparked a wave of excitement and innovation in the Customer Experience (CX) space, as businesses began to explore the ways in which generative AI could be used to improve their customer interactions.

While AI has been making lives easier for both customers and brands for a while now, awareness of the technology’s potential continues to grow rapidly. According to the latest research by McKinsey, generative AI’s impact on productivity could add trillions of dollars in value to the global economy: predicting the technology could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4tn annually.

“For CX teams in particular, generative AI has the capabilities to help us overcome some of the biggest industry challenges, such as the daunting task of maintaining a consistent flow of content,” explains Zarnaz Arlia, CMO at CX software company Emplifi. 

“Clearly, such technologies have the potential to assist with many day-to-day functions, from the automation of processes like content development, data collection and analysis, to the augmentation of CX initiatives to create faster operations.”

And as Alec Boere, Associate Partner for AI and Automation, Europe at Infosys Consulting, explains, ChatGPT and other similar technologies are shortening timescales for businesses to launch products and services into organisations and helping them to extract value.

“We’re already familiar with chatbots, but they are nowhere near the realistic mimicking of human conversation that these new models offer in the delivery of instant and accurate customer support. Of course, anything that boosts efficiency and effectiveness of customer service pays dividends for businesses, so it is already drawing much interest.”

How generative AI can deliver better experiences for customers

CX has arguably never been more important. Customers expect businesses to provide personalised, efficient, and interactive experiences that meet their needs.

Utilising generative AI can help businesses in a multitude of ways: from delivering enhanced personalisation to handling customer queries in real-time.

For brands, generative AI can go a long way in delivering more personalised customer experiences, essential in maintaining a loyal customer base and boosting revenue, Arlia explains. “By analysing customer data, such as purchase history, browsing behaviour, and social media interactions, AI algorithms can provide tailored recommendations and messages that meet customers' needs and preferences,” she describes. 

“This not only provides more personalised experiences but also offers actionable insights to help organisations evolve their CX strategies,” Arlia adds. “With these insights, emails will become more compelling,  target apparel will be just the right shade of blue, and landing pages will greet customers with content aligned with their needs, interests, and ideals.”

AI tools can handle customer queries in real-time  

Another capability of AI is to handle customer queries in real-time. Anyone who has worked in customer service understands the challenge of responding to the sheer volume of customer queries at a near-constant rate. As Arlia describes, generative AI’s ability to produce customer-facing copy is a godsend to teams who are already stretched to capacity. 

“For example, AI technologies can be used to create initial drafts of social copy that incorporate a brand’s tone and its preferred emojis, hashtags or questions, while ensuring that AI-generated responses are underpinned by important customer data,” she explains. 

“This is possible because openAI’s ChatGPT framework is a state-of-the-art language generation model trained on a massive amount of available text data, rules, and algorithms from the internet to generate human-like text based on a given prompt. The programme can then be trained and calibrated with more information to produce responses at scale. 

“However, while social media copy generated by AI might be a useful starting point to speed up the process, a human touch is vital to ensure posts are on brand and customer responses are factually accurate and feel authentic. After all, AI models are only as accurate as the data it’s built on, which for ChatGPT stops in 2021.”

Measuring CX performance at scale 

AI technologies can also be used to blend competitive intelligence, market trends and customer data at speeds that no human can achieve. While performance analysis isn’t simple, the more information a brand has at their fingertips, the better informed their decisions will be  – even more so if they have programs in place to act upon this intelligence. 

But while the benefits of generative AI are plentiful, we can't ignore the privacy concerns raised around the datasets that underpin ChatGPT’s AI models. “From a CX point of view, the information inputted into AI systems can be regurgitated back out, which poses a threat to accurate measurement and customer information,” Arlia adds. “Therefore, to mitigate privacy concerns, brands need to train their AI models with strict guidelines, feeding them with data that is legally obtained and compliant with GDPR laws.”

The need to maintain trust and transparency

As Boere describes, any organisation engaging in AI should have clear policies to ensure its implementation is ethical. “For example, businesses must have diverse teams to avoid transferring human bias into the technical design of AI - as the AI is driven by human input. 

“Companies should also refrain from using outdated data because these algorithms will only amplify past patterns and not design new ones for the future. For example, this was highlighted by the OpenAI Dall.E2 model, which, when asked to paint pictures of startup CEOs, all were male.

“As with all new technologies, responsibility must be at the forefront when implementing AI models,” he adds. “Trust is the key to making it work for both staff and customers.  AI models must run without bias to treat consumers and employees fairly, and safeguarding customers’ personal information and complying with all legal and regulatory environments must be prioritised.”

When it comes to utilising generative AI for CX purposes, the call to action is clear – leverage this technology but do so responsibly. “It’s easy to get caught up in the capabilities of generative AI, but it’s important to stress that this technology isn't a people replacer,” Arlia concludes. “Instead, it’s a people enhancer. At the same time, AI tools like ChatGPT can't thrive without being fed reliable and factual data sets from, you guessed it, humans. 

“For now, I think it's safe to say a robot takeover is still a fictional fantasy. However, the brands and CX teams that lean into emerging AI technologies will ultimately reap the most radical benefits.”