18 Generative AI Tools Transforming Customer Service

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Without a doubt, one of the standout use cases for generative AI in business is in customer service and support.

As customers ourselves, most people reading this will probably have experienced the frustration of dealing with traditional automated customer service systems.

But this is changing, thanks to today’s powerful large language models and natural language chatbots. And while reports suggest that we still prefer to talk to a human when it comes to handling complex or sensitive inquiries, when it comes to more straightforward help, robots are increasingly capable.

So, here’s an overview of some of the best applications and tools out there for automating customer service. While I believe a human touch will always be an important element of customer experience, these can free human agents from repetitive work, enabling them to spend more time on challenges involving empathy and creativity. ?

Cognigy

Cognigy is a generative AI platform designed to help businesses automate customer service voice and chat channels. Rather than simply reading answers from a FAQ or similar document, it delivers personalized, context-sensitive answers in multiple languages and focuses on creating human-like interactions. Along with fully automated customer assistance, its AI Copilot features are designed to augment human contact center workers, providing them with real-time AI assistance during their customer interactions.

IBM WatsonX Assistant

This is a framework for building AI personal assistants that can help out with just about any business task, including delivering intelligent customer support. Its focus is on delivering frictionless self-service experiences via a simple drag-and-drop configuration system. Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) ensures that the help and guidance it provides are always drawn from the most up-to-date sources, and it is capable of improving its responses over time as it becomes more in tune with your customer's requirements and expectations.

Salesforce Einstein Service Cloud

Einstein’s Service Cloud is a fully-featured customer service tool integrated into the Salesforce platform that’s capable of automating many routine and not-so-routine customer interactions, as well as augmenting human agents. Interactions are split into “low touch” and managed by the platform’s Agentforce automated service bots, or “high touch,” to be overseen by AI-augmented humans. Responses can be fully tailored to fit your brand’s style, tone and voice, and being built on top of Salesforce, the platform has secure access to your enterprise data in order to inform its responses and interactions.

Zendesk AI

Zendesk is an established leader in the field of customer support software, and it has added generative AI capabilities to its roster of services. It uses machine learning and natural language processing to understand customer sentiment and intent, automatically categorizing interactions and generating personalized responses. Human agents are provided with real-time guidance and advice on the best way to help out customers, and the AI learns to automatically direct tasks and inquiries to the best agent – human or machine – for the job.

Ada

Another leader in the field of conversational AI platforms, which are specifically designed to automate customer service communications at scale. A no-code interface makes it easy for anyone to set up automated agents in a way that suits their business, and it claims to reduce the cost of dealing with customer service inquiries by an average of 78 percent per ticket. Ada is designed to simplify the creation of custom bots, augmented with domain or enterprise-specific data, and quickly deploy them across omnichannel customer support scenarios, improving both support center efficiency and customer experience.

More Generative AI Customer Service Tools

There are a large number of generative AI tools specifically designed for deploying automated customer support bots or assisting human agents. Here’s a rundown of some more of the best:

Aivo

Automate customer service interaction across chat and social channels.

Certainly

Natural language-based generative customer support and ticketing tailored for e-commerce.

Directly

On-demand customer support combining automated machine learning and human experts.

Forethought

AI agent platform capable of handling complex and nuanced customer interactions.

Freshworks Freshdesk

Freshworks’ AI assistant Freddy automates customer support, generates workflows and provides natural language and personalized query resolution within the Freshdesk platform.

Gladly

Automate troubleshooting and answering both simple and complex queries, as well as routing to human agents when needed.

Intercom

Automate resolution of common customer inquiries.

LivePerson

Leverage AI chatbots and real-time messaging with in-depth analytics to understand how customers are using your channels better.

Netomi

Utilizes “sanctioned” AI to ensure generative language functions remain within brand guidelines and regulatory limitations.

Ultimate

Recently acquired by Zendesk, Streamline automates the resolution of repetitive support requests powered by ChatGPT.

Zoom Virtual Agent

Customer service AI agents from the popular remote meeting and messaging app.

About Bernard Marr

Bernard Marr is a world-renowned futurist, influencer and thought leader in the fields of business and technology, with a passion for using technology for the good of humanity. He is a best-selling author of over 20 books , writes a regular column for Forbes and advises and coaches many of the world’s best-known organisations.

He has a combined following of 4 million people across his social media channels and newsletters and was ranked by LinkedIn as one of the top 5 business influencers in the world. Bernard’s latest book is ‘Generative AI in Practice ’.