ETI Software executives Pete Pifer, CEO and Tom Taylor, Chief Strategy Officer, recently attended the AI Summit for Business in New York. The mission? To learn about the latest events in the Artificial Intelligence world as well as to understand better how to position ETI to improve services for its customers.
Many of the speakers highlighted that while AI is important, the first step is to understand the business problem to be solved. Too many times, AI Engineers and Data Scientists jump in with their tool of choice without first understanding the problem at hand. Once you have jumped that hurdle, consider these factors:
How much human interaction will be needed? A good definition is below:
A good use case was given to encourage thinking correctly about the AI applications and the problems they solve.
There are many customer calls that a Bot could handle, such as: What are you hours? How do I reset my password? However, CSR agents should handle the most complex questions that require some measure on creativity; such as “Why is A not happening when I try B; but only on Wednesdays?”
A good comment to keep in mind with conversational Bots vs. Humans – AI does not handle sarcasm well. If there is a chance for sarcasm in this interaction, have a human in the loop.
Human and AI Bot interaction. Many people think that it is a one-way street; the Bot starts to get the easy information and later hands over to a human. However, consider having a Bot start the conversation, getting the easy intro information. The human can then control the middle phase to make sure all was well and to do some upselling. Finally, the Bot finishes with the standard (boring) payment section.
Speakers stressed that using AI is a long term, multi-year solution requiring very powerful computing equipment and facilities. AI is NOT about wiggling your nose and asking for the moon, and a magic wizard making it happen. There is still a lot of work on your part… so take a hard look at your options, resources and commitment. Three specific and different skills are required to run any good AI Project:
If you understand the business problem and you have a team in place, begin and then keep iterating!