AI

Increasing channel diversity and automation will make interactions more complex, requiring highly skilled agents and intelligent processes to assist them. Here’s my take on five valuable use cases for AI in the contact center.

I’m really excited to join VentureBeat today for the webinar: “AI-powered location: A step closer to the future?” This isn’t my first foray into the spatial and mapping world. In fact, I’ve been a big fan of maps since my days in Africa, where my map of the world was the only decoration I had […]

In today’s increasingly crowded digital commerce market and with increasingly tighter budgets, retailers have to make smart choices about which technologies to invest in and which they should forego for now. To help retailers sift through the options, we conduct an annual top trends study. This year, we interviewed more than 30 retail industry professionals to ask about retail […]

At Microsoft Build 2018 in Seattle this year, Satya Nadella confirmed Microsoft’s strategy to bring AI everywhere and to everybody. Microsoft (MS) is making it easier for its huge worldwide development community, encompassing enterprises, partners, and single developers to infuse AI vision, speech, language processing, and more in applications building. As I wrote in this […]

Forrester Launches New Survey On AI Adoption There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence (AI) is top of mind for executives. AI adoption started in earnest in 2016, and Forrester anticipates AI investments to continue to increase. Leaders are quickly waking up to AI’s disruptive characteristics and the need to embrace this emerging technology to remain […]

Forrester Launches New Survey On AI Adoption There’s no doubt that artificial intelligence (AI) is top of mind for executives. AI adoption started in earnest in 2016, and Forrester anticipates AI investments to continue to increase. Leaders are quickly waking up to AI’s disruptive characteristics and the need to embrace this emerging technology to remain […]

There’s a sense of urgency in Asia to capitalize on AI, not only to compete but to lead globally. Appier, established six years ago in Taiwan, is one of these firms. I recently attended its first analyst event in Taipei to better understand how the company approaches the AI opportunity and helps its clients deliver […]

We’ve just released a major new report, The CIO’s Guide To Automation, AI, And Robotics. We find that, to stay ahead, CIOs, CTOs, CDOs, and other executives integrating leading-edge technologies into their companies’ operations and business models must turn their attention to automation technologies, including intelligent machines, robotic process automation (RPA) bots, artificial intelligence, and physical […]

AI, blockchain, chatbot, digital identity, etc. — there’s enough emerging technology in financial services to fill a whole alphabet book. And it’s difficult not to get swept off your feet by visions of bionic men, self-executing smart contracts, and virtual assistants that anticipate our every need. Investing in emerging technology is one of the main […]

A few weeks ago, the China Industrial Internet Summit — the country’s leading industrial internet conference — was held in Beijing. Dozens of leading manufacturing firms and technology vendors from the US, Germany, and Japan shared their latest achievements and future strategies with thousands of participants. The weather was cold, but the industrial internet is […]

Chatbots and virtual assistants (VAs) may be built on artificial intelligence and create customer experiences through digital personas, but the success you realize from them will depend in large part on your ability to account for the real and human aspects of their deployment, intra-organizational impact, and customer orientation. Start by treating your bots and […]

Great customer service is not just about cutting costs or making operations more efficient. Instead, it’s a systematic reinvention of established technology, data, and operations — leveraging automation, data, and agents together to exploit each of their unique strengths. This year, I see 3 broad customer service trends that organizations must consider as they fundamentally […]

We have a tendency to blame technology when things go wrong. I’m the first to admit that after years of working in the technology industry I’ve become more and more annoyed with the technology I use. As artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities have emerged in my smart phone keeping me on schedule, telling me how to […]

When you get over the fear of a robot taking over your job – because if you see our robots today they are still pretty dumb – your next big concern is how these new workers are going to perform. It’s not just a training question, it’s a management question. We all know the risk […]

Over the past year I’ve spoken formally and informally with hundreds of companies about their AI initiatives. The biggest AH-HA moment comes when these companies realize the difference between implementing traditional technology and applying analytics with adopting AI. AI is a change from within. New rules for AI are emerging that seem counter intuitive to […]

Customers use an exploding number of communication channels to interact with a company, moving between them dependent on their context and preferences. They also use several channels at the same time – like web and phone – if it makes sense to do so. We know that customers use self service as a first point […]

AI will change the nature of work. Look at the rise of driverless cars and ridesharing — two services that are fueled by AI. Customer service for these services is going to look much different than it does now. AI today is still in its infancy; AI applications span discrete capabilities, all of which are […]