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Humanizing AI takes center stage at Mobile World Congress

Humanizing AI was a dominant theme at last week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, where an estimated 93,000 attendees soaked up insights from brilliant leaders like DeepMind Founder and Google’s head of AI Demis Hassabis, along with all kinds of curious technology innovations.

In a panel discussion, Hassabis acknowledged flaws in the image-generation tool of Google’s Gemini AI (previously known as Bard) and said the feature was taken offline with plans to relaunch in a few weeks. He described the image generator feature as well-intended but that it was applied “too bluntly.”

Though he did not elaborate on the nature of unintended results, users labeled the flaw as culturally inappropriate and historically inaccurate. For example, an AI prompt for “U.S. Founding Fathers of 1789” served up images of Black and Native Americans signing the U.S. Constitution rather than white male signatories.

That’s just the latest reminder that AI remains a work in progress, but the bright light is that AI-enhanced features are already improving the customer experience and building trust.

Improving the balance of AI and humans

More than 40 presentations explored the balance of — and best opportunities for — humans and AI at the Mobile World Congress, which concluded Feb. 29.

“The Customer Experience Revolution in the AI Era,” featured a panel of experts including Deborah Battaglia, senior vice president, customer experience, Assurant. Among the lessons learned at Assurant, according to her presentation: Break work down into tasks; humanize your AI; harness the power of data; and use AI responsibly.

Some of the impressive results Assurant is seeing using AI in the contact center include:

  • 100% productivity increase of associates provided AI-generated prompts
  • 9 point CSAT increase, credited to AI prompts
  • Response time to customer inquiries reduced from 48 hours to fewer than 15 minutes by focusing on proactive experiences, rather than reactive
  • 100% of customer calls reviewed, up from 1% 

Bust out the innovation

There was no dearth of inventive new technology on display at Mobile World Congress. A sampling of works in progress:

  • Tecno’s Dynamic 1, an AI-enhanced robotic companion that replicates behavior of a real dog — and it does handstands)
  • Lenovo’s “rollable concept phone” that folds around your wrist
  • Swayy’s iPhone app that tells your friends not only where you are at the moment—but where you will be going next
  • Samsung’s smart ring that tracks heart rate, movement, and breathing for monitoring health and sleep patterns
  • OnePlus’ Watch 2 promises 100 hours of performance on a single charge.
  • Sweanty’s stick-on patch that tracks sweat during your workout to guide proper rehydration
  • Assistive voice technology from Whispp that converts whispered (or vocal cord-impaired) speech into a natural voice—in real time
  • Mica Al Medical’s operating system that provides early identification and diagnosis of suspicious findings in mammograms 

AI as an assistive tool to help humans—in medical, customer service, and other contexts—holds great opportunity, Google’s Hassabis said during an interview just prior to his Mobile World Congress keynote.

“We should be making tools to assist human experts, whether they’re scientists or medics or whatever it is, to free them up to do the higher-level conceptual work. Right?” he said during the Feb. 23, 2024, New York Times “Hard Fork” podcast.

“Today, our systems can help you with data crunching or some sort of analysis of a medical image. But they’re not good enough yet to do the diagnosis themselves, in my opinion, or to trust them with that. There should be an expert human in the loop.

“And I see that as the next phase, and for however many years or decades that will be. And then, maybe we’ll understand these systems better in the course of doing that, and we’ll be able to figure out what to build with them next to allow them to go to the next stage.”

Photo courtesy of GSMA / MWC

With AI giddiness gone, 2024 shapes up as a year of action

If 2023 was a year of revelation, zeal, and anything-is-possible hopes for artificial intelligence’s potential, 2024 is shaping up as a year of action.

Twelve months of toe-dipping and healthy scrutiny provided the launchpad to make some real moves with AI in the contact center, according to two customer experience experts on a recent webinar. The growing role of AI in customer interactions is just one of the major 2024 CX trends examined by TTEC’s Nick Cerise, chief marketing officer, and Tom Lewis, global leader, CX consulting, analytics and AI, TTEC Digital.

Cerise and Lewis joined participants of TTEC’s “Unveiling CX game changers for 2024” LinkedIn Live webinar recently to examine opportunities — and challenges — uncovered in the new CX Trends 2024 report that reveals four megatrends shaping CX and EX in the year ahead.

Subpar CX gives rise to human-AI balance

Now that they’ve had some degree of exposure to AI in customer support, and not all of it delightful, some consumers are thinking: Meh. Maybe I’d rather talk to a human, after all. This mindset highlights the need to balance AI deployment with humans, to use AI as an enabler that helps contact center associates perform better and improve the experience.

“2024 is going to be a year of action,” said Cerise, who also serves as global head of RevGen, TTEC Engage. “We’ve learned enough now to move toward acting.”

Organizations that thoughtfully embed AI into the experience and seek out ways to monetize customer engagement will squeeze the most value out of AI in 2024. Instead of expecting AI to deliver unrealistic efficiency savings overnight, look instead for revenue-generation opportunities, he said.

“Two out of every three engagements represent an opportunity for a brand to cross-sell or upsell” within the business-to-business services sector, Cerise said. “Take that cost center and move it to a profit center.”

Webinar participant Porfirio Díaz from Mexico asked if companies are nurturing talent as they should and whether investments truly reflect the AI-human balance “or have we overprioritized AI?”

Both Lewis and Cerise said investments in AI bots that role-play and coach contact center associates to become more empathetic show companies are making the right investments to nurture talent in tandem with AI.

Monetize customer engagement

Lewis said there is a right way, and wrong way, to approach this service-to-sales journey. Prioritizing the customer experience is paramount.

“Every call is unique — where the customer started from a service perspective and where that leads from a sales perspective,” he said. “Tools, analytics, and data can show you what works in a formulaic, constructive way.

“When you’re doing service and pivoting to a sales opportunity, the focus is to add value and not trap them or put other speed bumps in the way,” Lewis added. Solve the customer issue first, then segue to a sales conversation that’s relevant and valuable to the individual.

No need to overthink: A customer struggling with internet connectivity issues may not need to purchase a pricey new laptop; maybe an outdated modem is the culprit, a less expensive fix. Solve the issue first, then shift to sales.

A deeper understanding of why customers engage

“This idea of value is such an important construct for brands to think about,” said Cerise.

With conversational analytics and artificial intelligence, brands can build what he called an intent value maximation matrix. “Here, you can truly maximize value and begin to create a prescriptive approach to scoring intents.”

TTEC’s proprietary, verticalized intent library captures the top five to 10 reasons why customers engage with a given industry sector, whether it’s retail, healthcare, fintech, high tech, or the public sector. It’s not enough to focus exclusively on the most common reason customers engage but instead to get a deeper understanding of nuances and signals to interpret intents. Brands may discover it’s actually the less frequent, No. 4 engagement reason that holds greatest potential to transition from service to sales.

“This is going to be a year of deeper experimentation and willingness to learn on the back of the technologies that are now available,” Cerise said. “There’s not as much fear of failure, either. We feel we’re starting to get our arms around some of these things and that’s exciting to me.”


Watch the on-demand “Unveiling CX game changers for 2024” webinar and check out more details about CX Trends 2024 to see how the customer and employee experience will evolve in the year ahead.

Data, AI emerge as hot topics at CCW Austin

In today’s hypercompetitive market, actionable customer insight is extremely valuable currency. That’s one of the takeaways from Google Chief Strategist Neil Hoyne’s mainstage presentation at last week’s Customer Contact Week (CCW) Austin event.

Hoyne’s keynote emphasized the pivotal role of data in reshaping strategic perspectives for customer contact executives, underscoring the importance of data-driven decision-making in today’s competitive landscape. “Ninety-nine percent of companies I work with celebrate the people that win… the best-in-class recognize people before tests are ever run,” Hoyne said to the audience of customer executives. “You want to recognize people for the ambitious, audacious ideas backed by data and have alignment in your organization that will transform its path.”

Customer Contact Week (CCW) Austin, an event series dedicated to elevating professionals within the customer service industry, successfully concluded on January 25th in Austin, Texas. The event centered its focus on the transformative role of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping the customer experience (CX) landscape. CCW Austin delivered an immersive experience for attendees that covered the evolving intersection of AI, customer engagement, and leadership empowerment. 

One of the event’s highlights was the CCWomen Summit, spearheaded by Sandy Ko, founder & principal of CCWomen. The summit brought together distinguished female executives from various sectors to deliberate on the opportunities and challenges within the customer service domain. Esteemed leaders such as Natalie Beckermen, CEO of COG, and Kacey Felila Tolua, senior director of global technology for Marriott, led insightful discussions on leadership and empowerment, fostering a platform for collaborative learning and inspiration.

Moreover, CCW Austin offered an opportunity for guests to enhance their expertise through the CCW Executive Certificate Series, particularly the “CCW Fundamentals of AI for Customer Contact Leaders” program led by renowned expert Dr. Mohamed Zaki from the University of Cambridge. This program equipped attendees with the knowledge and skills to craft AI-driven strategies that enhance customer journeys and drive value creation, reflecting the event’s commitment to advancing industry excellence through continuous learning and innovation.

Up next is CCW Las Vegas, which returns to Caesars Forum in Las Vegas on June 3-6, 2024. Celebrating over two decades on the strip, CCW Las Vegas connects industry professionals, thought leaders, and solution providers to explore the latest trends, innovations, and best practices in customer contact.

NRF 2024: For retailers, AI moves from hype to the real world

National Retail Federation Big Show, 2024

It’s not whether you have AI, it’s how you use it.

That was the main theme at the National Retail Federation (NRF) “Big Show,” which recently brought thousands of retailers, technology companies, and customer experience experts together over four days at New York City’s Javits Center.

The topic of AI was everywhere. It dominated panel discussions, powered nearly every product demo on the trade show floor, and featured in economic forecasting discussions.

From legacy brands to emerging retailers, brands are embracing the benefits of AI, grappling with its challenges, and keeping customers top of mind when deciding when and how to implement it.

AI is helping customers and employees

Unlike last year’s Big Show, when conversations focused on the need to implement AI, the conversations retailers are having have shifted. This year, brands aren’t touting the fact that they use AI (since that’s become table stakes at this point); rather, they’re focused on how to best use it to innovate, drive efficiencies, reduce costs, and improve customer experience.

Tractor Supply Co., for instance, which owns about 2,200 stores in 49 states, launched an app called “Hey GURA” that gives associates real-time information and recommendations they can provide to in-store customers. When a customer asks a question, such as what appliances a certain generator can power, an employee can speak the question into wearable technology and the app instantly provides product details about that generator, answers frequently asked questions, and even offers recommendations or alternatives the employee can relay to the customer.

The app has increased customer satisfaction, reduced employee effort, and helped workers gain knowledge about in-store products, said Glenn Allison, Tractor Supply Co.’s vice president of customer-facing applications development.

Discussions elsewhere at the show focused on how retailers are using AI-powered tools to track customers’ buying habits, provide a more seamless experience between digital and in-store shopping, and empower contact center associates by putting more information at their fingertips.

Software developed by Ariadne Maps uses AI to follow people’s movements throughout stores (by tracking signals their cellphones emit) and cull insights from that data. Companies, including global home furnishing brand Ikea, are using the software to see where customers spend their time in stores, how long they spend in-store, and which areas see the most foot traffic.

Ikea uses those insights to inform decisions it makes about store layout and product placement, according to Adriane Maps CEO and Co-founder Georgios Pipelidis. The tool has helped the brand drive sales growth through strategic product placement and improve customer experience, he said.

Sights from the National Retail Federation Big Show, January 2024

Workforce impacts are still unfolding

As AI becomes more commonplace, retailers are closely watching how it affects their human workforce. Some brands are using AI-powered robots to stock and unload warehouse shelves, and to monitor inventory on store shelves, and many are using AI to resolve simple customer inquiries – so what happens to the people who used to do those jobs?

AI hasn’t led to a decrease in retail jobs, economists and retailers agree, but it is changing a lot of the work employees do.

It can be challenging to get associates and employees to adopt new technology, so retailers should strive to find AI solutions they can easily integrate into their existing platforms and systems, said Jeff Courcelle, vice president of user experience and chief designer at MicroStrategy.

“The key to adoption is to bring artificial intelligence to where they [employees] already are,” he said.

In many cases, AI isn’t taking jobs away from workers but it is changing job requirements considerably, said Karen Etzkorn, chief information officer of Qurate Retail Group, parent company of QVC, HSN, and other brands. The challenge for retailers, she said, is ensuring employees keep up with the evolving demands of their jobs.

“Our teams are going to be left behind if we don’t upskill them faster,” she said.

Consumer spending continues to bolster economy

During an economic forecast lunch for press and analysts, NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz said he’s “guardedly optimistic about 2024,” and other economists agreed the U.S. will likely avoid a recession this year.
Despite some headwinds, consumer spending remains strong, which is good news for retailers.

“What’s led this is an extraordinarily resilient jobs market,” said Brian Nagle, senior research analyst and managing director at Oppenheimer & Co. Even though many consumers said last year they would cut back on spending, especially as inflation rose, data shows they didn’t, he said.

If the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates later this year, as many economists predict, that could further bolster consumer spending, said Kenneth Kim, senior economist at KPMG.

In particular, home improvement and home furnishings retailers could see a boost later this year if the Fed lowers mortgage rates and sparks more home sales, Kleinhenz added. 

A low unemployment rate and strong job market led to increased holiday retail sales in late 2023 and retailers should be cautiously optimistic about this year too, economists said.

AI can be the ‘blast shield’ that makes contact center associates heroes

“You dial the number, navigate the recorded instructions. And if you’re lucky, there’s a person — a real person — at the end of the line.”

That’s how “CBS News Sunday Morning” host Jane Pauley opened this week’s segment that covered how AI is impacting customer service in contact centers. Her introduction was designed to be relatable to the 5.2 million viewers tuned in to the No. 1 Sunday morning news show.

To set the hook and ensure viewers didn’t switch over to another channel, a series of videos from disgruntled consumers and podcasters brought to life just how frustrating it is to wait on hold, get transferred to another person, or the worst insult: “All lines are busy. Please call back at another time.”

Contact center associates featured on the show were empathetic. They accept that their interactions often involve agitated people seeking to vent frustration, subjecting them to treatment that borders on abuse. The associates believe they hold the power to pull a 180, to solve problems, and end a call with resolution that transforms a customer into a cheerful, grateful being.

What these four contact center associates don’t believe, however, is that AI can play a role in improving the customer experience.

Ouch.

While that was the opinion of just four contact center associates working in healthcare and nonprofits, the CBS program’s popularity, capturing a full 50% of Sunday morning TV eyeballs, means that viewers’ skepticism about AI just got reinforced.

AI the augmenter

How unfortunate. In reality, AI deployed with understanding of customer intents and the entire journey helps to enhance the experience.

“We’re definitely going to see AI augmenting capabilities, skills, what people can do, improve productivity, and reduce effort in the customer journey,” said James Bednar, vice president, head of product innovation, TTEC, during a recent LinkedIn webinar, “AI Mythbusters for CX.”

AI-enabled bots:

  • Are always available (no more extended hold time or “call back later”)
  • Reliably handle the customer identification verification step
  • Efficiently complete simple interactions such as password resets and bank balance inquiries
  • Free up live associates to handle more complex calls 

And, perhaps most compelling, is the role AI plays when balanced with live contact center associates to bring humanity to the experience. AI can be “a bit of a blast shield,” Anthony Scodary, co-founder of AI voice bot company Gridspace, told CBS News.

He explained that AI bots can take a customer interaction to a certain point and smoothly hand off to a live associate who then comes in as the “hero” who resolves the issue. Automation and technology like AI “enables people to do the stuff that people are best at,” he said on the broadcast.

For team leads, there is a real opportunity here to educate — indeed demonstrate — to contact center associates how AI can make their jobs even better. Greater success translates to job satisfaction and improved retention.

This is not the time to wait

TTEC’s Bednar cautioned against a wait-and-see approach. The pace at which AI is moving obliges companies to start on the path of assessing their AI readiness and identifying use cases.

Knowledge-assist is a great use case in the contact center because AI can consume the total universe of knowledge in real time and make it easy for associates to access and use that knowledge. “That’s the holy grail of knowledge empowerment,” he said. “Associates love it and don’t want to stop using it.”

Analytics is another compelling use case because it’s more mature and low risk. AI-driven conversational analytics, speech analytics, and other analytics that provide insights to customer conversations are invaluable because they illuminate new ways to improve the experience.

“It all starts with data,” Bednar said. It’s essential to ensure that your library of knowledge is ready, that it is as easily consumable by AI as it is by a human being. Companies will discover there’s work to do on their foundational data to get it ready.

Uh oh. Please call back

Ironically, and perhaps amusingly, one of the employers of the contact center associates interviewed by CBS posted a website apology for long hold times Sunday and Monday, suggesting that the company may perhaps benefit from a little AI itself:

Warm holiday wishes with our World Peace Quilt

TTEC World Peace Quilt

This year, in the spirit of peace, unity, and the joy of giving, we are excited to share with you the results of a global creative effort. 1to1 Media and TTEC employees from around the world have come together to create our World Peace Quilt — a symbol of our collective commitment to fostering harmony in our interconnected world.

Created by employee prompts and generated by AI, the quilt beautifully represents our shared values and aspirations for 2024 and beyond. Please take a moment to explore the diverse perspectives and sentiments expressed by our collaborative spirit and imagination.

May the holiday season bring you joy, peace, and the warmth of cherished moments with your loved ones.

AI research separates hype from reality. Where do you fit?

Most companies are eager to implement AI solutions to improve customer experiences, but few have the data or technology ready to go to make it happen.

Those are some of the insights gleaned from TTEC Digital’s State of AI in the Contact Center research report. The research was designed to define where the CX market is when it comes to AI adoption, and what’s holding them back.

A majority of respondents (56%) cited improving associate efficiency as their top goal of deploying AI, followed by improving customer satisfaction (48%), reducing costs (47%), and reducing customer effort (38%).

But current AI adoption is limited. No AI contact center activity topped a 35% adoption rate. Lack of integrated cloud technology, foundational customer data, and privacy/security issues were common roadblocks to further adoption. On the bright side, many respondents were optimistic about accelerating AI adoption over the next 12 months.

Other highlights of the study: 

  • Brands hope AI-driven interactions can represent >60% of all conversations with their customers, but only 36% of customer conversationsare currently happening on digital channels.
  • 58% of respondents cited data privacy and security as having a major impact on their ability to implement AI solutions.
  • Sentiment analysisis the most common AI activity in practice today in the contact center, but with only a 35% adoption rate.

Learn more about the study and what it all means by watching the TTEC Digital webinar, “2023 State of AI in the Contact Center Report,” or download the study.

A fast-evolving CX landscape reveals opportunities and challenges for brands

With so much change amid the customer experience (CX) landscape, brands are embracing great opportunities – and some challenges – as they navigate it all.

CX leaders are grappling with the rapid rise of AI tools, the need to embrace digital while maintaining a human touch, growing associate burnout, and continual pressure to cut costs and demonstrate ROI wherever they can.

These were just some of the topics discussed at Reuters Events’ Customer Service & Experience East 2023, a recent two-day event in Brooklyn, N.Y., where CX professionals heard from industry leaders (and each other) about what’s on the horizon.

‘Automate the easy, service the complex’

A prevailing theme that kept emerging was the need for companies to strike the right, careful balance between AI and the human touch, both of which are essential for great CX.

In a session about generative AI, Assurant President of U.S. Connected Living Jeff Unterreiner said brands need to start with their customer experience in mind and implement AI from there.

The company, which provides insurance for personal items, is using AI to make customer interactions as easy as possible, he said. If a customer needs to get a broken smartphone repaired, for instance, AI will tell an associate the closet brick-and-mortar location that is open at that time and has the rights parts in stock to fix the phone. With this information in hand, the associate can help the customer quickly.

Assurant’s also using AI to generate associate responses and post-call summaries, with great success. Unterreiner said AI-generated suggestions have an 80% usage rate by associates, and with AI the company has seen a 15% rise in CSAT as associate efficiency has doubled.

But as powerful as AI is, humans remain an important part of the CX equation. In a separate presentation, Keith Farley, senior vice president of individual benefits at Aflac, said a key to delivering great experiences is to “automate the easy, service the complex.”

Use automation and self-service options so customers can help themselves when it comes to simple inquiries, he said, and automate rudimentary tasks that take up associates’ time unnecessarily. But remember most customers still prefer to interact with an associate for more complex, urgent, or emotional matters.

“If you’re truly customer-centric, it’s not about being just digital-first,” he said. “It’s about giving customers what they want.”

And Casey Denby, vice president of sales at Zenarate, noted in another session that while 75% of consumers prefer digital and self-service options when possible, it’s still humans who achieve meaningful resolutions.

ROI begins to trump KPIs

Another hot topic at the event was how challenging it can be to demonstrate the ROI of investing in CX. In a roundtable discussion, CX leaders from various brands (in the retail, quick-service restaurant, automotive, media, and fashion industries, among others) said their C-suites want to know the ROI of CX efforts, but it’s hard to quantify.

While it’s easier to make the connection between CX investments and KPIs, likes improved NPS and CSAT, attendees said it’s often difficult to translate them into concrete financial impacts.

But it makes sense for brands to prioritize ROI over KPIs, said Denby, speaking as part of a panel. With many companies trying to cut expenses wherever they can, CX teams need to make their case by positioning CX investments as ones that will generate savings, efficiencies, or other ROI down the road, he said.

Associate wellness moves to the forefront

The frontlines of any contact center are still the associates, and companies should be focusing on them more – not just retaining them, but ensuring they’re happy in their jobs, experts said.

As more simple and repetitive tasks become automated it means many associates are exclusively handling emotional, nuanced, or complicated interactions, which can be draining. And their jobs increasingly require them to be empathetic, which can lead to “compassion fatigue,” according to Dr. Grant Brenner, a psychiatrist at Mt. Sinai Beth Israel in New York City.

Associates’ jobs are harder than ever, making them more prone to burnout, he said. Left unaddressed, burnout can lead to absenteeism, lost work, depression, substance abuse, and medical problems.

It’s important for associates feel like valued members of the team, he said. Ask for (and use) their input, take their feedback into account, and prioritize associate wellness, he advised.

CX keeps evolving

Other topics on CX leaders’ minds included prioritizing CX throughout the customer journey, using technology to stay cost effective, breaking down organizational silos, and making the most of data, among others.

Here are few snippets of what people had to say:

“CX is about getting your customers to convenience.” – Casey Denby, vice president of sales at Zenarate

“If you don’t have good data, there’s no AI.” – Chandu Nair, senior vice president of data, analytics and computational intelligence and marketing technology at Lowe’s

“You can’t forget that the A in AI stands for ‘artificial.’ Sometimes you want it to stand for ‘authentic.’” – Keith Farley, senior vice president of individual benefits at Aflac

“Generative AI doesn’t automate jobs…it automates tasks.” – Chandu Nair

“Companies do not disrupt one another. They are disrupted by customers who choose to go somewhere else.” – Guilherme Cerqueira, CEO of Worthix

A scary CX trend: Employee compassion fatigue and burnout

One woman, beautiful young woman in office late at night, she is using a smart phone.

Customer experience leaders look for employees with emotional intelligence and empathy, traits that work great for helping customers and resolving issues. And in today’s AI-obsessed environment, empathetic human connection is a welcome differentiator for many people who don’t want to navigate an IVR or converse with a chatbot.

But be warned — the more that AI and automation is used within the customer experience, the more likely your human customer-facing employees will feel stressed and experience burnout and compassion fatigue.

With simpler interactions defaulting to automation, human employees will handle mostly escalations or issues that are too complex for automation. They will be the first ones frustrated customers talk to when they can’t resolve their issue or don’t know how to navigate an automated system. Associates who work industries like healthcare, financial services, or insurance are even more vulnerable because the topics they deal with are emotionally charged, such as declining a medical procedure or missed credit card payments.

It’s bound to take a toll on associates, especially those with high levels of compassion and empathy. The traits that make a great customer experience employee – compassion, empathy, problem solving skills – will kick into overdrive with more complex calls.

Stamp out burnout

People are not robots. They have feelings—and can sometimes get overwhelmed by them. And right now, 59% of customer service reps are at risk of burnout, including 28% who are at risk of severe burnout, according to Jeff Toister, author of the Service Culture Handbook. Expect that number to grow in tandem with more automation and AI.

Support your employees by making mental health tools available as part of your company’s employee experience program. Be mindful about providing employees with wellness resources, activities, and time off. And even AI can be helpful to monitor negative sentiment and trigger breaks and other actions when employees get stressed.

The result is a CX future a little less scary—and full of humanity.

Where do humans fit in AI’s long tail?

Girl making a heart-shape symbol for her favorite band.

What do music festivals, real estate developers, and the Caribbean island of Anguilla have in common? They all have been greatly impacted by the explosion of generative AI, with no signs of slowing down.
 
They are part of the AI long tail, where the technology’s explosive growth reverberates and ripples in unexpected ways. And they are just some examples shared by AI experts and practitioners at the recent GAI World conference in Boston.
 
“AI helps people expand the practical imagination space,” said Dr. John Sviokla, founder of GAI Insights, which hosted the conference.
 

AI winners and losers

The biggest AI use cases right now are for customer service and document summaries, UBS Stock Analyst Lloyd Walmsley told the audience. And companies have many different experiments going on showing real promise in several areas, he added. Tech stacks and cloud computing need upgrades. There is new demand for networking across the enterprise to transmit data. Customer data foundations must be in place. And then there are the ripples beyond the IT world.
 
Which brings us back to Anguilla, a tiny island of only 35 square miles in the Eastern Caribbean with a population of about 15,000. I learned at the event that the island nation owns the country domain “.ai” and is poised to generate more than $35 million in domain name registry revenue in 2023, according to Bloomberg. That’s a 5x boost in revenue since 2021, thanks to so many new AI startups launching this year.
 
Another unique player in the AI boom is the real estate industry. Nadia Lovell, senior U.S. equity strategist at UBS, said at the event that more than 30% of company earnings calls this year referenced AI. Tech companies led the way, followed surprisingly by real estate firms, she said. As AI needs grow, companies need more data centers and cooling facilities, which requires larger real estate investment.
 

The butterfly effect on human development

The ripples extend to humans as well. Boston University Associate Professor Gordon Burch explained that Large Language Models will be used in the short term to support information-based tasks like debugging code, researching topics, or explaining how to do something. This removes the need for employees—particularly junior employees—to collaborate with others in their workplace community to gain knowledge and expertise.
 
“Forming employee connections is important, especially for younger employees,” he said. “When using AI, be careful to manufacture opportunities for peers to engage and interact.” It will be up to companies to intentionally foster employee engagement and community that will otherwise disappear because of AI.
 
On the flip side, the breadth of digitization has pushed people to seek out more human experiences. Sviokla pointed to the growth in music festival attendance as a good example. “There’s a natural tension between the digital and human worlds,” he said. It’s important to strike a balance with human-centered experiences, supported by digital tools, to give people an analog outlet to counteract expanding virtual experiences.
 
And with the rise of AI, it’s essential to bring current employees along with the right tools and reskilling, said Joe Atkinson, vice chair, U.S. chief products and technology officer at PwC. Atkinson helps lead PwC’s $1 billion investment in GenAI and digital transformation, with a large portion allocated to developing the “next generation of workers.”
 
“We need to prepare our people to use GenAI or else we are leaving them in harm’s way,” he said.

Sources: GAI Insights, StackAware