Insight of the Week: The Procrastinator's Guide to AI

By Kerry Robinson

I constantly hear plausible reasons not to invest in contact center AI:

• We're moving to a new platform which includes AI capability, so we'll wait and build on that
• Our backend systems are a mess, we are building out a new layer and can plug the AI into that when it's ready
• We have lots of different knowledge management systems - we need to reconcile these first and then we can leverage AI to access a single source of truth

?

These are all plausible. And wrong.

?

Just as revision timetables are no substitute for doing the work a plan to implement in the future is no substitute for applying AI now.

?

The fantastic thing about modern AI solutions is that they are infinitely composable. Open AI. Anthropic. Azure cognitive services. These are all just APIs. They don't care whether you're calling them from your old platform or from your shiny new one. So, you can get started leveraging AI now and just point your new systems at those same APIs (or vice versa) when you're ready.

?

Here are three good reasons to do just that:

?

1. It gets you in the race. The huge hype cycle in the AI is driving activity across-the-board, if you are not active now you are falling behind.
2. It gets you data.? Data you can use to drive your longer-term AI strategy. And short-term tactics - which knowledge sources an existing chatbot or IVR applications are the most important?
3. It makes migration easier. A cloud-based call routing system can triage between the old and the new contact center environments.

?

So don't get distracted with pretty revision - or AI deployment - timetables. Get started now.

Kerry Robinson is an Oxford physicist with a Master's in Artificial Intelligence. Kerry is a technologist, scientist, and lover of data with over 20 years of experience in conversational AI. He combines business, customer experience, and technical expertise to deliver IVR, voice, and chatbot strategy and keep Waterfield Tech buzzing.

Subscribe to Kerry's Weekly AI Insights