In the age of globalisation and technological advancement, this combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and customer experience (CX) is revolutionising how customers interact with organisations. Measures of adapting information technology such as AI-intelligent automation to support customer interaction are now key enablers of near-customer service experience. While businesses are venturing into this exciting frontier, knowledge of trends, embracing the appropriate technologies, and, especially, keeping in tune with customers will define the pace and impact of CX with AI.

Customer experience was more often brought by direct interaction with the company through its employees. However, due to the new trends such as speed, personalisation, and convenience, which customers look for in a business, companies are seeking AI solutions. Gartner in its report has projected that by 2025, 95% of customer interaction will be controlled by AI compared with thirty-seven percent in 2019. Such a spike only highlights the importance of AI in deciding the path CX would take in the future.

Artificial intelligence means intelligent automation approaches where enterprises can cut on time and also provide the best services by adopting the strategies needed. From personal voice assistants and intelligent messaging bots to predictive analytics, recommendations, etc. all these are redesigning customer experience across diversified domains.

Some trends driving AI in customer experience:-

• Hyper-Personalisation: Today’s customers are looking forward to organisations delivering localised services in harmonisation with their customer behavioural characteristics. Other AI technologies work and include natural language processing or NLP for natural human language understanding and machine learning or ML for analysing big data corpora to predict customer needs in real time.
• Conversational AI: Nowadays, chatbots and virtual assistants are obligatory in the sphere of customer support. These tools as we have seen include ChatGPT and Google Dialog Flow and can promptly respond, solve matters, and competently handle queries. A market study by Juniper Research indicated that chatbots will cut business costs to $11 billion in 2027, indicating their efficiency and productivity.
• Emotion AI: Also known as affective computing, Emotion AI is slowly finding its way into CX to identify the emotions of customers. Emotion AI enables organisations to understand levels of customer satisfaction through the face and tone, as well as the sentiment of the texts received. For instance, with the help of artificial intelligence patterns, the system can identify dissatisfied clients in near real-time mode and turn the situation into support teams’ hands.
• Proactive engagement: One of the most significant benefits of implementing a predictive model is it means businesses can be proactive and try to foresee what the customer requirement might be before such necessity is evident. AI-driven recommendation implies that, with an understanding of past communications and behaviours by customers and salespeople, AI can present solutions or products as solutions before they are even needed.
• Voice technology: Smart assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant etc. are paving the way for how customers engage with brands. Smart speakers currently rank third globally, with sales poised to rise to $35.5 billion by 2025, so we are witnessing the potential of incorporating voice technology into CX initiatives to create value and improve customer experience.

However, introducing AI in customer experience is not without its equivalent challenges. Another significant business risk is that of data protection and security because artificial intelligence primarily uses customer information. It is also crucial to note that while creating the framework for their companies, businesses need to follow rules such as GDPR and CCPA.

Furthermore, getting the right balance between the use of technology and personnel intervention is very important. First, AI is adept at processing large volumes of customer interactions, but there are always specific situations where customers need to speak to an empathetic and intelligent person, a live agent. A Forrester survey of customers showed that 43% of them preferred speaking to a human being rather than being served by the chatbot to answer complex queries.

Finally, AI technology can be rather difficult to implement and may require a considerable amount of time and effort to become incorporated into the recognised production line. AI adoption requires enterprises to take time and train their employees, as well as ensure proper integration of the bots and employees.

AI has a bright and versatile future when it comes to the delivery of customer experience. Automated support is set to become ‘indistinguishable from human labour’ as the use of generative AI, for example, OpenAI’s GPT, improves.

Furthermore, the combination of AI and other relatively new technologies such as AR and IoT shall open up new levels of end-to-end connectedness and integration of the CX. For instance, instruments connected to IoT can leverage AI for recommendations or diagnose a problem without involving the customer further improving the customer experience.

Analysing the role of AI, it is quite evident that as advanced technologies unswervingly progress, so must organisations adopt the use of AI to be able to effectively meet and address the needs of the current consumer. This paper looked at how hyper-personalisation will drive a progressive change in the customer experience, conversational AI as an enabler of transformation, and some of the issues including data privacy that they will need to overcome to realise the potential that AI has to offer in customer experience.

By now, it is evident that the path to AI for CX improvement is a long one and involves perpetuating customer value improvement efforts, research, and development, as well as support for forward-thinking, customer-focused initiatives. When AI is defined as a strategic asset, enhancement of customer satisfaction and development of customers’ loyalty and the company’s growth potential becomes possible.

This article is authored by Honish Joseph, Princ Software Apps Engineer, Yahoo.