The time for 'Ambient UX' is here

“Should you go to technology or should technology come to you?”

Ever since technology started coming into our lives, there has been contact attempts to make technology more and more ambient. To have technology more deeply integrated with the flow of our lives.

Be it a series of devices like Google Glass or more subtle approaches like Alexa and Apple Home or even the likes of Siri, there have been trials of making it easier to access technology.

None of these experiments succeeded in becoming truly mainstream.

While voice came up as a great tool for communicating with the machine, it was stuck in one big problem -?The machine was never smart enough.

Let me explain.

Mainstream Software has always been built to solve three things:

1. Memory
2. Process / Workflow
3. Distance

If you specifically look at B2B software, it has always been one or multiple of these three that were getting solved.

In the process, there is always one piece that has always been with humans -?Intelligence.

Traditional UX and UI have always been made to solve memory, process, and distance for humans and help them use their intelligence better and make decisions.

Hence UX needed tables, graphs, charts, infographics, images, and other visual elements to show data to humans. Because, humans were the intelligent ones, making decisions.

Well, not anymore!

Technology has not started solving FOUR problems:

1. Memory
2. Process / Workflow
3. Distance
4. Intelligence

What happens when the layer of intelligence is outsourced to machines? Let’s start with simple changes.

• Your Siri or Alexa will now give smarter answers and do smarter things. You wouldn’t need to look at a screen and do point and click.
• Your interactions with the machine can now be in the most natural way - conversations. Just like you would talk to a human.
• Your graphs and charts can now be understood by the machine. You can simply ask questions and get answers rather than trying to infer answers from the graphs.

Ambient UX

When the UX is ‘in-the-flow’ of your usage of the software, it is ambient UX. Simple. It’s more human, it’s more natural and it’s completely frictionless.

Want help? Just ask! You will get it. Want software to run something for you? Just ask it to and it will happen.

No opening the phone, no opening an app, no going through 5 screens to get to what you want, and 20 screens after that to make the software understand what you want.

What’s better? Getting what you want without even you asking for it!

That future will happen sooner than later.

Ambient UX in CRM - How would the CRM change?

Software design would undergo a fundamental change. It will be bigger than the change from command line inputs to GUI.

Let’s imagine the future CRM.

• The future CRM would not need a list view of opportunities and contacts.
• Can it be a Tinder-like interface where the most valuable lead is presented to the BDR for a call?
• Or can it just dial the next most probable customer so that the BDR can talk?
• Do we even need the BDR to talk? Can an AI talk?
• For the sales leader, is there a need for graphs and charts? Or can it be a series of alerts and insights passed on to them as messages with solid insights?

I have a detailed PRD reimagining a CRM for the AI world. Want to get it? Subscribe to my Substack (https://bnwai.substack.com/) and share this article on Linkedin.