How AI could transform the customer service industry

um we've been talking about AI of course
AI is playing a larger role in the
customer service space in particular
streamlining customer requests to
address issues faster and to predict
future roadblocks the result at least
ideally happier customers and human
workers with more time to focus on
higher value tasks by 2025 70 of All
Digital workplace service transactions
will be done via automation compared
with just 30 percent today that's
according to Gartner research software
Solutions company nice is bringing
conversational AI to the customer
experience with their cx1 system the
company currently partners with more
than 25 000 organizations worldwide
including American Airlines Disney and
Morgan Stanley Barack Island the CEO of
nice joins us now with how AI is shaping
the future of the customer service
experience
um as we I mean customer service I have
to say writ large
is not well regarded but in a lot of
fields especially when you're not
interacting in person right I think
about telecom companies I think about
Airlines which we just mentioned so how
can we make it better is this going to
help make it better
I I truly believe so you know we uh I've
been in this space for about 24 years
and I've you know been the the CEO of
nice for 10 years and you know AI is is
a true game changer for the industry of
customer service if you think about it
the ideal way of what we want as
consumers we want almost a personal uh
service individual in every company that
will dedic will be dedicated just for us
obviously it's not really effective and
Brands cannot really afford to do that
what AI brings to the to the table is
this whole notion of mass
personalization at scale so you know it
will take time and Enterprises are just
now we're in the early Innings of
Enterprise adoption of AI but that for
the first time really bring the ability
to have this breakthrough in the
customer service space and so in in
customer service as kind of Julie was
alluding to though we were looking for
that human connection because there's
often more understandability how does AI
actually get past where the those
pitfalls might be because it's Ai and
not us actually speaking to somebody and
how does that impact the company too
because that's business lost if that
experience doesn't go as planned because
they've invested in AI so first you're
absolutely right that Brands understand
that you know customer service today is
very strategic for All Brands you know
the most important assets are the uh the
consumers and what AI brings to the
table I think is three things and it's
not just one Silver Bullet the first one
you know it is an industry or the whole
notion of customer service that is very
rich with people that are 15 million
employees that work only in customer
service around the globe this is this is
a highly skilled labor and there is a
need for more of them what AI brings to
the table is the ability to really you
know provide amplification of that ski
labor and get them to be much more
effective with as they interact with
consumers the second is the whole idea
of the ability to take decisions at a
much faster velocity by organization and
take care of you as a consumer right now
and not just in the day or two uh from
now and the third is what I said about
the mass personalization scale it's not
going to be just one thing it's not
everything going to go into AI we see it
already today with what we do with
customers and Enterprises it's the how
do you inject AI into well-established
process of customer service so just make
it very concrete for people
when I'm doing a live chat with whatever
company let's say my phone company which
I may or may not have in my internet
provider which I may or may not have
interacted with earlier in the week I'm
typing into the chat and the bot comes
back to me and says whatever it says
which is not what I wanted from this
company so is it already being put in
place through some of your products that
it will better understand what I want
and give me back a better response and
then also when I get connected with the
human cue the human perhaps in a better
way is that what's already happening in
your product we are in our products yes
I think we are kind of in a in we're in
a certain race right now of businesses
adopting Ai and this experience you have
with your phone company or any other
company is yet truly empowered by I uh
you know we've seen in the last few
months individuals adopting AI outer
generative AI we all experience that
it's very cool when Enterprises think
about adopting AI there are three few
other things that need to be taken into
account it needs to be extremely precise
so the experience that you have will be
extremely precise with the uh with the
brand it needs to be compliant and
secured it needs to be aligned with the
brand business goals and and you know
what they want to achieve from the
interaction with you and of course it
need to be tightly connected to all the
backend system and that's how you'll
you'll get to a much better experience
and we at the end of the day it does
need to connect at the important moments
to that service individual that sits on
the other hand and can intervene and the
moment that there is some ambiguity
about your intent as a consumer so you
won't get lost in this journey
um so we were talking earlier in the
show about how this is very conceptual
right now and we want more concrete so
tell me concretely what the demand is
for this product from your customers
right now the demand is extremely high
and Enterprises understand today that
you know generative AI uh is really the
next big thing however the interaction
we have with customers and we have 25
000 customers we cater to the you know
85 percent of the fortune uh 100 is like
they cannot take just you know generic
generative Ai and put it into their
environment from the reasons I've
mentioned before about security and
compliance and you know air zero
tolerance for errors and and Alignment
to the brand so we are right now seeing
a dramatic increase in both the demand
for the solution that we have we have a
platform called cx1 and it's a core AI
called enlightened and that basically
the difference between you know generic
generative AI that you see out there
versus you know an AI that businesses
can trust and that's what we're doing to
customers around it for us so we we
reported earnings about few weeks ago
only talked about you know dramatic
increase on the number of of our AI
revenues they are going at you know
three figures of percentages and I can
tell you that right now already uh you
know uh is you know as the EU progresses
many of our deals are now uh you know
double and triple in size due to the
addition of of AI which I think in
general we're gonna see a change in
where the a value go right now you see
it in the market in the semiconductor
classic beginning of every technology
wave it will go up to the infrastructure
level but eventually it will end up with
the specialized applications what is the
Benchmark margin contribution that you
would like to see from your AI
Investments at the company
so you know we run on a very uh healthy
gross margin as a company we run at them
north of 70 percent and overall
operating margin is closer to the 30
percent and AI is extremely acuitive to
all margins
all right Barack thank you so much for
being here Barack I love is CEO of nice