Let me begin with my gratitude. I would like to thank Tom Martin, CEO at Glance, for the exciting viewpoint he put forward in his 'None of us are as clever as all of us' suggestion. He had a lot of interesting insights in terms of the interface between AI and human employees.
As we develop AI into our systems, we will need to determine what AI will replace, what it will augment, and what it will add.
How quickly we get used to new technology
One of the things Tom said was that back in the 90s, we didn't buy everything online or on our phones. It's hard to remember that time now.
Another point Tom made was that people now use employees to help with the customer experience. However, I disagree; fewer people work in CX these days. Moreover, organisations have fewer people.
My worry with AI is that we will end up with companies that use it to slash and burn the people on staff to get profits.
My worry with AI is that we will end up with companies that use it to slash and burn the people on staff to get profits. However, my optimistic side hopes that more enlightened organisations will use it to enhance the experience and effectively leverage it, as Tom suggests.
AI presents opportunities to shift some routine tasks off the backs of human employees and onto AI systems. The danger is if these systems fail, there is no human employee to pick up the slack.
For example, it bugs me that call center recordings always say they are experiencing a high volume of calls but that my call is important to them. I think, "It must not be important enough to ensure there are resources to help me." Also, is it a high-volume time or instead a normal-volume time without people on staff to support them?
Remember the last time we got excited about a new technology?
Another interesting insight from Tom was that AI is an easy path into a digital journey. He described it as pulling this information together. When you think about it, most journeys now could start with an app. After that, you can apply AI to analyse what is working and how, as well as problem-solving for frictional moments.
However, I would caution us to be realistic about what AI will do. It sounds like a magic elixir that will solve any problem you sprinkle it on, but that isn't the case. It's a powerful tool, yes, but only a tool. My concern is that some organisations will apply it willy-nilly to any part of the experience to fix challenges, where I would rather it be focused on the customer journey and solving specific problems.
It reminds me of a project I oversaw 20 years ago. We were implementing a new system that was going to automate a lot of the processes, save money, and provide a better experience. We all talked about all the problems it would solve once the system was in place.
However, the reality was that the system was challenging to get off the ground because everyone in the organisation wasn't on board, and we experienced a lot of resistance from teams that liked working another way.