I have been pondering over this ‘much spoken about technology’ called Generative Artificial Intelligence or #GenAI since it made a splash with the launch of ChatGPT in end-2022, and what it means for us in the business world.
Clearly since the birth of the worldwide web in the 1990s, there hasn't been anything as significant as Gen AI in the world of technology and computing, it will completely change the way we live our lives and communicate, or how business and commerce will be conducted in the future. Just looking at the range of initial use cases being published every day, the possibilities seem limitless. No wonder ChatGPT took only 5 days to cross 1 million users!
As someone associated with the fast-evolving digital customer experience (CX) industry, I am pretty gung-ho about this technology. It can do some seriously cool stuff… be an analytical genius sifting through that humongous amount of data you have collated or work as a smart assistant crunching numbers or even whip up awesome creative content at a text prompt.
While it’s not going to be all smooth sailing with several hurdles cropping up, as with any technology in the past, there are many exciting possibilities that Gen AI brings to the table, especially for the BPM or CX industry. Here are some of my thoughts.
- Gen AI can bring together a multitude of technologies across the 3As (analytics, automation and AI) and Cloud to make things faster, easy to use and more personalized than ever before. This would be critical, especially in a world where the gap between the digital natives and digital immigrants is deepening. Companies such as HGS are working on such solutions that can help both enterprises and consumers in various scenarios today – like retail inventory update systems, analytics-led security tools, AI-powered customer support, etc.
- Today’s LLM models – based on third-party, in-house or open-source solutions – are a real-time data cruncher for businesses. Given that the BPM industry deals with a huge range of structured and unstructured data, there’s a big opportunity to leverage this to enable previously unexplored activities and in a smarter way. Using Gen AI to uncover insights and trends in large datasets could be especially valuable for client industries like e-commerce and finance.
- There is lot of talk that Gen AI will lead to job losses. I believe that the landscape is going to change instead, with routine tasks taken on by technology. Our associates will have to reskill to take on supervisory roles or new related activities. For example, with the need to teach the machines right to make them acceptable and the challenges of misusing technology, skills such as data tagging and content moderation will be high in demand.
- Chatbots and virtual assistants powered by Gen AI can provide round-the-clock CX, thus enhancing customer satisfaction while reducing the need for large customer support teams.
I also see a huge potential opportunity for leveraging Gen AI to make multi-lingual support significantly better by developing real-time translation LLM models for any language to English and vice-versa. This means that there will no longer be a need for local language experts as English will become the basic common denominator. So irrespective of where the consumer is from or what support channel they are using, any person who can speak, write and understand English can respond. India with its English-speaking prowess and competitive price-points has an inherent advantage for this type of service.
To summarize, Gen AI could be a real game-changer for the world of technology and business… but brings with it some risks too! Its success will depend on how well we utilize it and for what purpose. I am looking forward to hearing from you all on this!
Disclaimer
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and any content provided on this blog is for informational purposes only.
