The ChatGPT Revolution

Unless you've been living in a remote isolated cave for the last three months, you've likely heard about ChatGPT, the AI-powered language model developed by OpenAI. For those who don’t know, ChatGPT is essentially a chatbot based on a cutting-edge deep learning architecture that can understand and respond to customer inquiries in a human-like way. It can answer a wide range of questions on various topics, including customer service inquiries, product information, and general knowledge queries. It uses natural language processing techniques to understand the context of the customer's inquiry and provide a relevant response.

What makes ChatGPT unique is its ability to learn from customer interactions. It can analyse the language used by customers and understand their intentions, allowing it to provide even more accurate and helpful responses over time.

Moreover, ChatGPT is a flexible and customizable solution that can be tailored to suit the specific needs of businesses. It can be integrated with a range of platforms and channels, including websites, social media, and messaging apps. This makes it a versatile solution that can be used across a range of industries, from e-commerce to healthcare.

Released to the public on November 30th last year it has become the fastest ever technology adoption, reaching 100 million users in just two months. For some context, Google needed over a year to reach this number, while Facebook took 4.5 years, and the humble telephone 75 years!

In less than 4 months this technology has shaken up the tech industry, prompting many industry leaders to make major changes in their product portfolios as well as new investments. Just look at some of the big announcements that have been made so far:

• NICE announced the integration of its CXone Expert solution with OpenAI’s generative modelling infrastructure.
• Campbell-based cloud services provider 8×8 has announced it has integrated AI across its products, including OpenAI’s Whisper model, throughout its XCaaS (eXperience Communications as a Service) platform.
• Genesys have made several public demos showcasing integration between their Genesys Cloud Web Messaging and ChatGPT.
• CISCO is giving Webex a ChatGPT-like natural language interface.
• Five9 has released two new products offerings: AI insights and AI summaries. The first one combines ChatGPT-3 with real-time transcription to automatically interpret customer conversations and cluster them into categories, whereas the second one supplements its agent-assist solutions by auto-summarizing interaction transcripts and publishing them in the CRM.
• Salesforce released its Einstein GPT the 7th of March while Salesforce Venture (the global investment arm of the company) announced a $250 million generative AI fund to spark more development in the area.
• Microsoft announced a $10 billion investment in OpenAI, while on March 16th released its new Microsoft 365 Copilot offer. Essentially an AI-enhanced assistant tool leveraging ChatGPT that orchestrates three specific things: (a) the power of Large Language Models (LLM), (b) relevant contextual data pulled from different sources leveraging Microsoft Graph, and (c) all the Microsoft 365 applications.?

The is no doubt ChatGPT has shaken up the tech industry triggering a race among all these companies to be the first ones to build new solutions that can transform the way business interact with their customers. By leveraging its ability to understand natural language queries, learn from customer interactions, and provide accurate and helpful responses ChatGPT will become an invaluable asset for any business looking to improve its customer service and stay ahead of the competition.

One of the most significant impacts of AI ChatGPT will be on Contact Centre platforms given its potential to reduce the workload of human agents. With ChatGPT, Contact Centres can automate many of their routine tasks, such as answering frequently asked questions or providing basic product information. This frees up agents to focus on more complex inquiries that require human intervention, resulting in increased efficiency and improved customer satisfaction.

More importantly, all the traditional After-Call-Work (ACW) tasks every agent must perform immediately following a customer interaction, will be fully automated. Agents will no longer have to spend a lot of their time keying activity codes, interaction summaries, updating customer databases, or filling out forms. The ACW metrics will see a significant time reduction, leaving agents with more time to actually service customers.

AI ChatGPT can provide Contact Centres with valuable insights into customer behaviour and preferences. By analysing customer interactions, ChatGPT can identify patterns and trends, providing Contact Centres with the data they need to make informed decisions about product development, marketing, and customer service.

Another advantage of AI ChatGPT is its ability to provide 24/7 customer service. With ChatGPT, Contact Centres can provide instant support to customers at any time of the day or night, regardless of time zones or holidays. This improves the overall customer experience and can help to build customer loyalty.

It is true we are not there yet. However, the industry is moving extremely fast with this technology. A good place to catch a glimpse of the disruption coming ahead is to watch Microsoft’s AI Future of Work event held back in March. The demos done in this event show how people with basic knowledge on Microsoft applications can now produce sophisticated Word, Excel, or Power Point documents by simple text interactions with the ChatGPT chatbot. Microsoft 365 Copilot can generate speaker notes, build a whole presentation out of the content found across different Word documents, or analyse complex Excel workbooks.

Microsoft's AI Future of Work Event: Everything Revealed in 8 Minutes - YouTube?https://youtu.be/VqhDnaqhnd4

Introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot with Outlook, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote - YouTube https://youtu.be/ebls5x-gb0s

In conclusion, the impact of AI ChatGPT on Contact Centre platforms is significant and cannot be ignored. Its ability to automate routine tasks, provide valuable insights, and improve the customer experience can provide a competitive advantage for Contact Centres, enabling them to stay ahead of the competition and deliver exceptional customer service.

Leo de Paulis